Under U.S. law, online service providers need to respond to takedown notices and implement a meaningful policy to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

Many of the large social media platforms stick to these rules, but according to a lawsuit filed this week by several prominent music companies, Twitter is not among them.

‘Breeding Mass Copyright Infringement’

Universal Music, Sony Music, EMI and others filed a complaint at a federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, accusing Twitter’s parent company X Corp of “breeding” mass copyright infringement. The company allegedly fails to respond properly to takedown notices and lacks a proper termination policy.

As a result, Twitter is reportedly rife with music piracy. This activity generates many millions of views which are monetized by the social media platform, while rightsholders are not compensated.

“Twitter fuels its business with countless infringing copies of musical compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ exclusive rights under copyright law,” the complaint reads.

“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.”

The music companies say that while many online platforms have agreed to licensing deals, Twitter has shown little interest in compensating musicians. This hasn’t changed since Elon Musk took over. Instead, the attitude towards rightsholders seems to have worsened.

The lawsuit specifically mentions a tweet from Musk which described the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as a “plague on humanity.”

“This statement and others like it exert pressure on Twitter employees, i