Lawsuits Between Elon Musk’s X and Music Publishers Dismissed on the Same Day
Publishers were suing X for copyright infringement, and X sought antitrust charges against the publishers
X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, and the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) had their lawsuits against one another dismissed on the same day. X, which is now owned by Elon Musk, was leveraging an antitrust lawsuit against the NMPA, while the NMPA was suing X for copyright infringement.
The details:
NMPA’s lawsuit was dismissed in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
X’s lawsuit was dismissed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Both were dismissed with prejudice, meaning charges cannot be refiled, and both sides are to incur all legal costs.
Background:
The NMPA lawsuit was filed in 2023 before Musk rebranded Twitter as X.
The NMPA coordinated the lawsuit on behalf of 17 publishers, including Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Warner Chappell Music.
The lawsuit sought over $250 million in damages for infringing around 1,700 works.
X filed the antitrust countersuit in January after previous settlement talks fell through.
In March, a U.S. Supreme Court Case, Cox Communications v Sony Music Entertainment, set a legal precedent that internet service providers are not liable if users infringe copyrighted material.
X cited the ruling as grounds for dismissal of the NMPA’s lawsuit.
👋 Disclosures & Transparency Block
This article was written with information sourced from Music Business Worldwide.
We covered it because the suit involved music publishers from the three majors.
