Elon Musk is officially going to war with the modern music industry’s most powerful gatekeepers — and this time, it’s not about algorithms or advertisers. It’s about control.
Musk’s platform X has filed an antitrust lawsuit against the National Music Publishers’ Association and major publishing giants including Universal, Sony, and Warner Chappell, accusing them of coordinated abuse of copyright law to strong arm platforms into overpriced, industrywide licensing deals.
In plain English: X says the music business is acting like a cartel.
According to the lawsuit, publishers have been “bombarding” X with thousands of takedown requests every week under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, forcing the suspension of more than 50,000 users. X argues this isn’t about protecting artists — it’s about leveraging collective power to coerce compliance.
The publishers, who collectively control more than 90 percent of music compositions in the United States, allegedly refuse to negotiate individually. Instead, X claims they operate through the NMPA to force platforms into all or nothing licensing agreements at inflated prices.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is.
This is the same music industry that quietly cut deals with Meta, TikTok, Twitch, and Roblox after flooding them with takedown notices — a pressure tactic that critics say turns copyright enforcement into economic blackmail.
Unlike those platforms, X didn’t bend.
X doesn’t offer a free music library, hasn’t taken out sync licenses, and relies on DMCA takedowns when content is flagged. The NMPA claims that’s standard practice. Musk’s lawyers say it’s coordinated market manipulation dressed up as copyright enforcement.
Legal experts are split, but even critics admit the lawsuit isn’t frivolous. Antitrust scholars note that using a legal tool like DMCA takedowns doesn’t automatically make collective coercion lawful — especially when competitors act in lockstep to extract higher prices.
That’s the heart of Musk’s argument: this isn’t about protecting creators, it’s about protecting an industry model that thrives on centralized control.
For years, the legacy music business has positioned itself as a moral authority while quietly enforcing a pay to play system that rewards conformity and punishes platforms that don’t fall in line. Musk’s lawsuit threatens to expose how that system really works.
Whether X ultimately wins or not, one thing is already clear: Elon Musk is challenging the woke music machine in a way few tech CEOs ever have — head on, in court, and without asking permission.
And that alone has the industry nervous.
"Elon Musk Dreaming of a Brighter Future" by jurvetson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
