Photo Credit: Dima Solomin
Music publishers have moved to shut down X’s massive antitrust suit, pointing to the alleged absence of a related injury and maintaining that the social platform’s complaint “suffers from numerous additional fatal flaws” to boot.
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and a number of its member publishers just recently fired back, after X submitted the underlying action closer to 2026’s beginning. As we reported then, the plaintiff is accusing the NMPA-corralled defendants of colluding “in a concerted refusal to deal with X independently.”
Throw in a dash of alleged DMCA takedown notice weaponization, and with an alleged emphasis on across-the-board licensing as opposed to with individual publishers, the “anticompetitive scheme” in question sought “to extract industrywide licenses at supracompetitive prices,” per X.
(Earlier in April, following the Supreme Court’s Cox Communications v. Sony Music decision, the publishers and X jointly moved to pause their main years-running infringement battle.)
Unsurprisingly, the music publishers themselves are on a completely different page and say that X, at the top level, has yet to “identify a single instance where it sought an individual license and” saw the request denied.
Besides this alleged lack of actual “industrywide license” evidence, in the publishers’ view, “X cannot bring an antitrust action because X has not suffered an antitrust injury.” The NMPA and its members, the motion explains in more words, haven’t conspired with X rivals to block licensed music access, for instance.
Also factoring prominently into the publishers’ arguments: Late March’s dismissal of a different antitrust suit, likewise levied by X, targeting an allegedly unlawful advertiser boycott. The way the publishers see things, the “same result holds here.”
What about the alleged DMCA abuse? According to the dismissal-minded publishers, the alleged conduct amounts to “only routine, legitimate copyright enforcement.”
“X does not claim that the notices are entirely baseless and unrelated to any valid assertion of copyright rights, or that they in any way harm competition. … The conduct X attacks—pre-suit DMCA takedown notices—is classic petitioning and enforcement activity protected by the First Amendment,” a relevant section reads.
As for the monopolization allegations, X’s claim is said to come up short because of an alleged failure to demonstrate that any publisher “has monopoly power or a dangerous probability of achieving it.” And regarding an alleged conspiracy, X’s complaint “does not actually allege any refusal to deal” in individual licenses.
“With respect to Warner, Universal, and Sony, X does not allege the Majors ever declined to negotiate with it,” the dismissal motion continues, proceeding to also elaborate on the circumstances surrounding X-Warner Chappell talks described in the initial suit.
“The only Music Publisher communications X identifies were with Warner and they show the opposite of a refusal to deal,” that section reads. “For nearly two years, Warner unsuccessfully sought to secure a license with X.”
For these and other reasons – the dismissal motion memorandum runs 56 pages, or a bit longer than the initial complaint – the publishers are looking to dismiss the suit with prejudice.
