Twitter Facing $250 Million Music Publishers Lawsuit Citing Copyright Infringement

Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and former CEO, is weighing in on the uproar Elon Musk caused on the social platform after setting “view limits” on tweets.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Sony Pictures Television has announced a new division focusing on music development, headed by Palash Ahmed, who worked as a music producer before joining the company in 2017. The move is intended to leverage the company’s ties to Sony Music Group and the larger music industry. In this role, Ahmed will be collaborating on music-related projects across SPT’s production groups (U.S. scripted, international production, nonfiction and kids divisions).  SPT Chairman Ravi Ahuja made the announcement in an internal note to staff, obtained by Variety. 

Darrell Issa Guest Columnist Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet represents California’s 48th Congressional District. Later today on the Nashville, TN campus of Belmont University, I’ll convene a field hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. The hearing won’t just take place in Music City, USA but five years after Congress achieved that rarest of things: A consensus solution that recognized the rights of musical artists and created a way they could be compensated fairly by publishers. It may be hard for some to believe, but at the time we crafted this legislation, the music industry and other content owners were being crushed by widespread piracy and an inability to monetize the value of musical creativity.

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, is being criticized after declaring that the words “cisgender”and its abbreviated form, “cis,” are slurs that will be barred from the social media platform.The term, which refers to individuals whose gender identity matches their assigned sex at birth, has been viewed controversially by many of those to whom it refers. They argue that their identities should not be defined relative to transgender individuals.Musk made the declaration on June 20 in response to a tweet from James Esses, an Irish right-wing media figure, who claimed that transgender activists berated him with the word, which he both ideologically rejects and believes is a slur.Esses’s claim to fame is that he was expelled from a therapist training course after sending a public petition to his school, requesting they change how they view gender dysphoria to “safeguard therapy and counseling” for children.Esses now uses his social media channels to speak out against the idea of gender dysphoria and deny the concept of transgender identity, and advocates for bans on puberty and hormone blockers for children. “Yesterday, after posting a Tweet saying that I reject the word ‘cis’ and don’t wish to be called it, I received a slew of messages from trans activists calling me ‘cissy’ and telling me that I am ‘cis’ ‘whether or not I like it,'” Esses complained in a Twitter post.

Love Island's brutal Twitter challenge, which had previously been titled Twitter Bingo, Online Bingo and Online Buzz, may be making its return after being absent from the show's most recent series.The challenge would see the islanders shown a number of tweets about the show but with their names blocked out, leading them to guess who the tweet was about. It was last seen in 2019, under the name 'Online Buzz' and was met with claims of faking tweets, after Molly-Mae Hague was accused of coupling up with Tommy Fury to better her chances of winning the £50,000 prize.The tweet in question referred to her as Money-Mae, but when fans searched this they could not find the tweet in question, which may have just been deleted rather than made up but still caused some controversy.

Warner Music Korea, the South Korean subsidiary of Warner Music, has issued a statement against claims by their agency Attrakt that it had attempted to illegally poach members of girl group FIFTY FIFTY.On June 26, K-pop girl group FIFTY FIFTY’s label Attrakt released a statement claiming that Warner Music Korea had been colluding with an unnamed third party to illegally poach members of the group.“We have evidence of [an outside party] clearly attempting to poach FIFTY FIFTY members illegally, and we request Warner Music Korea to provide an adequate explanation and answers,” said Attrakt earlier today, per Korea JoongAng Daily.This also comes several days after Attrakt stated last Friday (June 23) that it would take legal action against other agencies that had been spreading negative rumours about it “in an attempt to lure the members of FIFTY FIFTY” into breaking their exclusive contracts.Warner Music Korea has since denied the claims made by Attrakt in a new statement, per XSportsNews. “First, as FIFTY FIFTY’s overseas distributor, Warner Music Korea has has been working [with FIFTY FIFTY] since April 1, 2023,” it said, as translated by Soompi.“We have done our best to make the dazzling achievements of FIFTY FIFTY and their agency shine even brighter by mobilising Warner Music Group’s abilities and network, so we are very sorry that such unfortunate suspicions were raised,” added Warner Music Korea.The agency went on to say: “Attrakt’s claims are groundless, and we are regretful that they have sent [us] a certification of contents.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Warner Bros. Discovery is negotiating to sell around half of the storied Warner studio’s film and TV music-publishing assets for approximately $500 million, three sources confirm to Variety. The news was first reported by Hits. While it is unclear exactly which assets are on the table, one source says that the rights to “slightly less than half” of the catalog, with a price of around $500 million, are likely to go to a major label, with Sony said to be in the lead. The catalog is believed to include music from such films as “Purple Rain,” “Evita,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Rent” several “Batman” films and many more titles, as well as songs included in iconic films such as “As Time Goes By” from “Casablanca” — iconic titles to be sure, but again, it is unclear exactly which rights are in play. Top attorney Allen Grubman is said to be overseeing the deal for Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

Universal Music Publishing has only gone and signed itself Niall Horan to one of those big fuck off global publishing deals that all the cool kids keep talking about. Endlessly talking about them they are. TikTok is full of cool kids talking about global publishing deals.

Take That‘s Howard Donald has been dropped from a Pride event after Twitter users noticed he had liked a series of anti-LGBTQ+ tweets.The tweets that Donald had liked reportedly featured content from Andrew Tate, posts criticising a trans-inclusive period campaign, videos of anti-trans pundit Posie Parker (whose real name is Kellie-Jay Keen), and a tweet from Turning Point UK founder Charlie Kirk that called for Disney to be “defunded” for announcing a Pride event.Following widespread backlash, Donald then deleted his Twitter account.The Take That vocalist had been lined up to headline the Groovebox Nottingham Pride Festival, which is set to take place in Blinks Yard on July 29.Now, Groovebox has confirmed in a statement posted to Facebook that he will no longer be appearing.“In light of recent events, Howard Donald will no longer be playing at our Nottingham Pride Festival on Saturday 29th July at Binks Yard,” they wrote.“We would like to offer our thanks to the public for alerting us to the situation this morning and also appreciate your patience whilst we spoke to the relevant parties.“We are working on confirming a replacement headliner alongside Horse Meat Disco, Tayce, Danny Beard & ESSEL for Nottingham Pride and will make an announcement in due course.”Deeply disappointing to see Take That’s Howard Donald liking transphobic and homophobic tweets – while playing Pride festivals. The LGBT community made that band.

Twitter following alleged copyright infringement.The suit was filed in Nashville’s Federal Court yesterday (June 14) and claims that the social media platform has infringed on over 1,700 different songs.It also seeks up to $150,000 (£118,630) per infringement — which totals up to $255million (£180million) to be paid if Twitter is found liable.Some of the biggest music publishing companies are included among the plaintiffs listed including Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, Universal Music Publishing, BMG and Kobalt.The publishers listed direct copyright infringement, contributory infringement and vicarious infringement as their counts.David Israelite, the president of NMPA issued a statement regarding the suit, stating: “Twitter stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service.”He continued: “Twitter knows full well that music is leaked, launched, and streamed by billions of people every day on its platform. No longer can it hide behind the DMCA and refuse to pay songwriters and music publishers.”Twitter has not yet issued a response regarding the allegations.The inability of the social media giant and music publishers to reach a licensing agreement stems back numerous years and, at time of writing, Twitter is the only major social media company to be working without one.As per the suit, the plaintiffs stated that they hoped new ownership of the company would help them resolve the ongoing issue.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The National Music Publishers Assn., acting on behalf of 17 major music publishers, is filing a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against Twitter for its failure to license and pay for the music widely available on its platform.  The complaint seeks more than $250 million in damages for hundreds of thousands of noticed infringements of approximately 1,700 works. “Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law,” the complaint reads in part. “While numerous Twitter competitors recognize the need for proper licenses and agreements for the use of musical compositions on their platforms, Twitter does not, and instead breeds massive copyright infringement that harms music creators…

If you've got a Freeview TV and have noticed that the screen resolution isn't as clear as it normally is, it may be down to the scorching weather.

lawsuit said.Members of the National Music Publishers’ Association, including Sony Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management and Universal Music Publishing Group, are seeking more than $250 million in damages for alleged infringement of nearly 1,700 copyrights.The lawsuit said the longstanding infringement has gotten worse since Elon Musk bought Twitter in October, and that other major platforms like TikTok, Facebook and YouTube properly license music from the publishers.Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The artists represented by the suit include Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Ed Sheeran, the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, Miranda Lambert and Rihanna.NMPA President David Israelite said in a statement that Twitter “stands alone as the largest social media platform that has completely refused to license the millions of songs on its service.”Twitter “routinely ignores” repeat infringement by users who post tweets that contain unlicensed music, the lawsuit said.

Demi Lovato is opening up about why she decided to adjust her pronouns back to using “she/her” and “they/them” after coming out as non-binary — and her reason is likely to ruffle LOTS of feathers!

Denver Business Journal. The property is to be returned to the landlord before the end of July as a result of the order’s 49-day time limit.The lawsuit was filed by holding company Lot 2 SBO LLC, having not been paid rent since March, after a $968,000 letter of credit Twitter provided back in February 2020 ran out.

A consortium of music publishers on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Twitter, claiming the social media platform has repeatedly violated copyright law by hosting music without permission and failing to police infringers.

Twitter is facing a massive lawsuit over copyright infringement.

Jimmie Allen is facing more charges of sexual misconduct. The country singer has been sued for sexual assault for the second time in less than a month, this time by a woman who claims he filmed their sexual encounter without her consent, according to court documents obtained by ET.An anonymous woman filed a police report in Las Vegas in July 2022, about the alleged encounter, which happened in May. In the documents, Jane Doe claims that Allen violated her privacy by secretly filming her, and also continued to engage in sexual contact with her after she'd revoked her consent.These charges come on the heels of Allen being sued for sexual assault and harassment by his former manager last month.

Axios reported.Fox did not comment on the Wednesday report, and Carlson’s lawyer Bryan Freedman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A source familiar with the situation told Axios that Fox believes it has been working in good faith to reach an amicable agreement.Carlson was reportedly still under contract until 2025, to the tune of $10 million per year, when he was abruptly fired in late April.

Stephen Rodrick Tucker Carlson — who was booted from Fox News last month — has made a serious pile of cash practicing what I like to call the conventional wisdom of the counterintuitive take. His worldview can be whittled down to this: everything you ever heard is wrong. And I mean everything. (He still believes the English alphabet has twenty-six letters but give him time.)  Last night, he began the Twitter phase of his lucrative career. Carlson was broadcasting from an undisclosed man cave of a studio — complete with unfinished wood and fishing rods that clashed with his preppy tie and blue blazer attire. It made him look like the country club money man wandering into a meeting of the Secret Society of Maladjusted Lunkheads who all loom right off-camera.