Twitter Files Motion To Dismiss Copyright Lawsuit, $250M

Aug 16

Earlier this year amid Twitter’s ongoing layoffs and corporate restructuring, I wrote about how Twitter did indeed have a plan to implement some sort of music licensing deal to combat the illegal use of certain musical works. With the looming and subsequent purchase of the social media giant by Elon Musk, the companies mission changed. Elon realized that Twitter wasn’t generating the profit margin he was looking for, which led to him slashing costs. Everything from personnel to rent for the building was drastically chopped down, and a music licensing deal (and a team to run that division), is very costly. Twitter’s lack of initiative led to a lawsuit from the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) for $250M for Twitter’s “rampant infringement of copyrighted music” and now, Twitter filed a motion to dismiss the NMPA’s lawsuit “in it’s entirety.”

Twitter’s lawyers said that music publishers “fail(ed) to adequately allege direct infringement because the initial complaint does not contend that Twitter acted with the requisite “volitional” conduct”. They continued, at length, that infringement laws need to be directly violated, arising from “active, knowing, non-automated conduct by a defendant - not from the passive, automated operations of a website,” and the claims made by publishers is “similarly defective.”

I don’t know though… “Active, knowing, non-automated conduct” sounds exactly like what Elon’s mindset was towards the issue. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Tik-Tok are all massive social media platform that have the willingness and ability to ink these licensing deals with publishers. With Twitter having been talking about putting music licensing deals in place before Elon arrived in October 2022, it sure as heck seems like Twitter was “active” and “knowing” of the problems they had, and their behavior for years suggests they weren’t interested in making these licensing deals happen (non-automated conduct by a defendant).

I’m just a music blogger though… What do I know?