Music publishers and the social media platform X could approach a regulation of their two-year copyright counterfeit trial, according to new documents recently filed before the Federal Court in Tennessee.
The three major music publishers – Universal Music Publishing, Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell – as well as other major players, including Concord, BMG and Kobalt, brought a trial of $ 250 million against X (then called Twitter before Elon Musk, changed the name later this year) in June 2023, declaring that the platform “was completely refused The billions of songs on its service “and that X”. violate copies of musical compositions. »»
“Twitter is alone as the largest social media platform which has completely refused to concede to the millions of songs on his service,” said the president and chief executive officer of the National Music Publishers Association, David Israelite, in a statement when the prosecution was brought in 2023. “Twitter knows that music is disclosed, launched and disseminated by billion people each day on its platform.
The trial was partially rejected last year, with judge Aleta Trauger rejecting some of the publishers’ offense complaints, but the case was still authorized to carry out the allegations of the complainants according to which X “provided more copyright device, no approval of the deletion notices and not taking reasonable stages in the late response.”.
On June 6, the publishers and X filed a joint request to suspend the procedure, writing that the two “determined to engage in efforts in good faith to fully resolve and amicably this trial”. On June 11, Trager had placed the stay order. The publishers and X have 90 days to resolve the file before the stay.
“If the discussions remain productive, but a resolution has not been reached within 90 days, the
The parties can jointly request a new extension, ”wrote Trager.
“The intention of the stay is to discuss with X the resolution of the prosecution and the appropriate compensation to the songwriters and the publishers for uses spent without license, while offering an opportunity to host licenses,” said a spokesperson for the NMPA in a press release.
An X representative did not immediately respond to the request for comments.
According to the request for initial suspension of the parties, the discovery in the case was to end on July 17, 2025.
The companies have written that there were still “many depositions” which would take place before the end of Discovery, as well as reports of opening experts scheduled for August.
The parties said: “The previous activity, as well as other expected and unexpected activities, including discovery disputes, would interfere with the prospects of a friendly resolution in this dispute.”
