X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has motioned to dismiss the lawsuit major music publishers filed against the company in June, accusing the platform of wide-scale copyright infringement.
In the motion, reviewed by Rolling Stone, X cited a 2005 supreme court ruling from MGM Studios v. Grokester and maintained that the suit should be tossed because the publishers “do not allege that X encouraged, induced, or intended to foster the infringement of Plaintiffs’ works,” further arguing that the music publishers “must allege that the defendant took active steps with the intent of encouraging infringement.”
“To the contrary, X’s anti-infringement policies and practices, including its DMCA policy, believe any reasonable assumption that X has induced its users to infringe any copyrights,” the company said in the motion. “Even reading the Complaint in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, no liability can be established on the facts as pleaded.”
Outside of the intent, X also argued that the suit should be dismissed because the publishers “do not allege that the ability to post infringing content to the X platform is a draw to users sufficient to confer an ‘obvious and direct’ financial benefit to X, or that X had the practical ability to supervise the alleged infringement.”
X’s motion marks the company’s first response to the claims since the music publishers filed their lawsuit two months ago. The three major music publishers — Universal Music Publishing, Sony Music Publishing, and Warner Chappell — along with other prominent publishers, including BMG, Wixen, Hipgnosis, and Kobalt, among others, claimed the site had infringed on over 1,700 songs, seeking $150,000 per infringement and as much as $255 million in damages.
“Twitter has repeatedly failed to take the most basic step of expeditiously removing, or disabling access to, the infringing material identified by the infringement notices,” the plaintiffs alleged in their initial complaint. “Twitter has also continued to assist known repeat infringers with their infringement. Those repeat offenders do not face a realistic threat of Twitter terminating their accounts and thus the cycle of infringement continues across the Twitter platform.”
X’s thorny relationship with the music business well pre-dates Elon Musk’s ownership of the company. The platform has for years been the lone company among the major social media platforms to fail to reach an agreement with music companies for a licensing deal on their copyright. Still, the publishers alleged in the lawsuit that the change of ownership “has not led to improvements in how it acts with respect to copyright. “On the contrary, Twitter’s internal affairs regarding matters pertinent to this case are in disarray.”
David Israelite, president and CEO of the trade group the National Music Publishers Association, said in a statement that X’s motion to dismiss was “another attempt to deny the fact that they have consistently failed to stop or even slow the rampant piracy on their platform.”
“Music is streamed and consumed by countless people on X,” Israelite said. “The service owes songwriters and publishers millions of dollars in compensation as well as a commitment to fully license music, consistent with all other major social media platforms and the law.”