Elon Musk’s X Corp is seizing on a landmark US Supreme Court ruling to argue that music publishers’ long-running copyright infringement case against the platform should be thrown out.
Last week, as MBW reported, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment that internet service providers cannot be held liable for copyright infringement committed by their users, unless the provider actively induced the infringement or provided a service tailored to that infringement — meaning a service not capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
In a court filing obtained by MBW, dated March 27 — just two days after the Cox decision was handed down — X’s lawyers told the Nashville federal court that “under Cox, the liability theories that survived X’s motion to dismiss fail as a matter of law.”
X has requested a status conference with the court and signaled its intention to file a motion for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that the Supreme Court’s new legal standard renders the publishers’ surviving claims defunct.
The filing, which you can read in full here, states: “If the Supreme Court had issued this opinion three years ago, X believes this Court would have dismissed Plaintiffs’ contributory-infringement claim in its entirety.”
X’s lawyers also warned that without intervention, both sides are “poised to spend millions of dollars in fees and expert expenses in the coming months on issues that Cox makes irrelevant as a matter of law.”
In a response filing on March 31, also obtained by MBW, the publishers agreed to a stay of all deadlines — including expert discovery and X’s pending motion to compel — while the court considers next steps.
However, the publishers made clear they do not accept X’s reading of the Cox decision. Their filing, which you can read here, states: “Plaintiffs disagree with Defendant’s assertion that the Cox decision means that this case should be dismissed. Plaintiffs’ allegations and the factual record support this case moving forward.”
The publishers indicated they may file a motion to amend their complaint and/or seek reconsideration of the court’s earlier motion-to-dismiss ruling — potentially reviving claims previously dismissed, while also opposing X’s argument that Cox forecloses their case entirely.
The trial had been scheduled for early 2027.
The case dates back to June 2023, when a coalition of music publishers — including Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Warner Chappell Music, alongside independents such as Kobalt, BMG, Concord, and Reservoir — sued X (then still known as Twitter) for alleged widespread infringement of around 1,700 copyrighted works, seeking more than $250 million in damages.
The lawsuit, spearheaded by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), accused X of profiting from unlicensed music while refusing to enter into the kind of blanket licensing agreements that virtually every other major social media platform — including Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat — has signed with music rights holders.
In March 2024, a Nashville federal judge partially granted X’s motion to dismiss but allowed the case to proceed on allegations including that X failed to promptly remove infringing content and neglected to act against repeat offenders.
Last June, as MBW reported, the two sides were granted a 90-day stay of proceedings to engage in settlement negotiations. By November, both parties reported making substantial progress toward a written settlement agreement.
But that progress collapsed. In January, rather than finalizing a deal, X filed an antitrust countersuit against the NMPA and 18 publishers, accusing them of colluding to force the platform into industrywide licensing at inflated rates.
X alleged that the NMPA had orchestrated a campaign of nearly 500,000 DMCA takedown notices designed not to protect copyrights, but to pressure X into compliance.
NMPA President and CEO David Israelite dismissed the countersuit as meritless, stating: “X/Twitter is the only major social media company that does not license the songs on its platform. We allege that X has engaged in copyright infringement for years, and its meritless lawsuit is a bad faith effort to distract from publishers’ and songwriters’ legitimate right to enforce against X’s illegal use of their songs.”Music Business Worldwide
