A federal judge has thrown out the copyright claims at the center of Wixen Music Publishing‘s lawsuit against Meta Platforms.
Judge John F. Walter ruled that Wixen has not shown it holds the rights that would let it sue over the 681 works it says Meta used without a license across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The order, obtained by MBW, was issued last Friday (September 4) in the US District Court for the Central District of California, and can be read in full here.
Judge Walter decided the motion on the written filings, without a hearing.
Wixen has until September 18 to file a second amended complaint fixing the problem.
The ruling knocks out both of Wixen‘s copyright claims: direct infringement by Meta and contributory infringement for what Meta‘s users did with the music.
Wixen‘s three other claims are untouched for now: defamation, trade libel, and intentional interference with its contracts.
Nothing in the ruling decides whether Meta infringed anything.
It turns entirely on whether Wixen is entitled to bring the case in the first place.
“The Court concludes that Wixen has failed to adequately allege that it has standing to sue under the Copyright Act with respect to any of the Works,” the order states.
“The Court concludes that Wixen has failed to adequately allege that it has standing to sue under the Copyright Act with respect to any of the Works.”
John F. Walter, US District Judge
Wixen is a publishing administrator, handling rights for more than 2,000 clients across a catalog of more than 100,000 songs.
Wixen‘s amended complaint, filed in May, described the publisher as the “exclusive licensee and/or owner” of the works at issue, without specifying which it was in any individual case.
“Wixen, however, fails to specify for any particular Work, whether it is an owner or an exclusive licensee, what exclusive rights it holds, or from whom those rights derive,” Judge Walter wrote. “The Court agrees with Meta that Wixen‘s general and conclusory allegations are insufficient to establish standing.”
The harder problem for Wixen is how the courts treat songs with more than one owner.
Under Ninth Circuit rulings that bind Judge Walter‘s court, the order states, “a copyright co-owner cannot unilaterally grant a third party an exclusive license in a co-owned copyright interest that limits the independent rights of other co-owners.
“Indeed, absent the other co-owners’ consent, the licensee holds only a non-exclusive license and thus lacks standing to sue for infringement on the basis of that license.”
The practical consequence for Wixen and other administrators is that a publisher holding only a license to one writer’s share of a co-written song generally cannot sue an infringer on its own.
Judge Walter pointed to a concession Wixen made in its own court papers.
“Wixen candidly concedes that it does not, in fact, have standing to sue for approximately 100 Works identified in Exhibit A under binding Ninth Circuit case law,” the order states.
Wixen told the court it was prepared to amend its complaint “to remove the approximately one hundred Works for which it is an exclusive licensee of less than the entire work.”
Wixen‘s amended complaint sought at least USD $102.15 million, based on the USD $150,000 maximum statutory damages for willful infringement, multiplied by the 681 works listed.
Removing around 100 of those works would cut that theoretical maximum by roughly USD $15 million.
Wixen is also seeking at least USD $20 million on the defamation claim.
Judge Walter said he would not rule on Meta‘s bid to dismiss any of the three state-law claims “unless and until Wixen adequately alleges a federal copyright claim.”
If Wixen‘s copyright case collapses, the court will then decide whether the remaining claims belong in federal court at all.
Wixen sued Meta on January 23 over 331 works, seeking around USD $49.65 million, as MBW reported at the time.
It expanded the case in May to 681 works and USD $102.15 million, saying it believed the true number of infringed works was “well over one thousand.”
Meta asked the court to throw out all five claims in June, calling Wixen “a serial litigant” and arguing it was “seeking to transform a routine licensing dispute into a sweeping copyright and tort dispute.”
Courts in the same district have twice dismissed Wixen‘s copyright complaints on the same grounds: against Pandora in July 2020 and against Triller in February 2021.
Wixen argued its case should survive because its second attempt in the Triller action did.
Judge Walter rejected the comparison – but the contrast sets out what Wixen now has to produce.
The Triller filing, the order notes, “included allegations regarding how Wixen acquired the legal ownership rights as well as allegations regarding the contractual language granting Wixen such rights.”
The ruling does not require Wixen to prove it owns the works, only to state plainly, for each one, whether it owns or merely licenses it, and which exclusive rights it holds.
Judge Walter confined the rewrite to curing that copyright problem, and barred Wixen from adding new parties or claims without the court’s permission.
The dispute stems from a licensing deal Wixen first signed with Facebook in March 2018, which expired on December 10, 2025 after renewal talks collapsed over rates.
Since the license lapsed, Wixen says, Meta has kept the publisher’s catalog in the music library that feeds Reels videos and other content, without authorization or payment.
Wixen alleges that Meta‘s “reason for slashing payments to songwriters is to replace human-generated, royalty-bearing music with royalty-free AI-generated music.”
It also accuses Meta of removing clients’ music from its platforms while the license was still active, then telling those clients that Wixen was responsible.
Meta is fighting several other copyright actions from music rights holders over the same platforms.
A claim from Eight Mile Style, co-publisher of hundreds of Eminem songs, was cleared to proceed on direct infringement in June, with up to USD $109 million at stake.
Epidemic Sound has two suits pending against Meta, the first of which sought at least USD $142 million.
Wixen and Meta had not responded to MBW‘s requests for comment at the time of publication.Music Business Worldwide
