Wixen Music Publishing Sues Meta, Alleging AI Music Royalty Cuts and Retaliation

Wixen Music Publishing has filed a lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the social media giant is attempting to “drastically cut payments to human songwriters” and replace them with free A.I. music. The lawsuit also claims that Meta is retaliating by smearing the publisher to the music business.

Filed on Friday, the lawsuit states that licensing negotiations for Instagram and Facebook stalled last year because Meta offered only a small fraction of its previous payments to songwriters whose music appears in the platforms’ licensed song libraries.

Wixen, which represents Weezer, The Black Keys, Santana and numerous other prominent artists, argues that Meta plans to substitute human-generated music with “royalty-free AI-generated music” on its platforms.

“Meta’s success or failure at slashing royalties now will have a profound effect on how other social media platforms approach music royalties,” Wixen’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit, which was obtained and first reported by Billboard. “Given these serious implications for its clients, Wixen refused to accept the exploitative, below-industry rates for its clients.”

According to Wixen, Meta retaliated by unilaterally removing some songs before the existing licensing deal expired. This move was allegedly designed “to damage Wixen’s relations with its clients.” Wixen further claims that Meta falsely blamed the publisher when artists inquired about their music's removal.

“Meta made these false statements with the malicious intent to strong-arm Wixen into accepting drastically reduced rates,” the company’s lawyers assert. “By disseminating these falsehoods to the managers of Wixen’s clients, including many prominent managers in the music business, Meta painted a false and damaging picture of Wixen to a broad swath of clients and potential clients.”

A Meta spokesperson has yet to issue a public statement. Wixen CEO Jason Rys stated to Billboard that the dispute exemplifies “big tech discounting the value of music and stealing wholesale from songwriters and artists.”

Rys added, “Music has been and remains an intrinsic part of the success of Instagram, Facebook and other Meta platforms. That Meta would prefer to infringe original music while training their own AI-generated music shows their true colors. Wixen is standing up for the rights of human songwriters and artists.”

Wixen has licensed its songs to Meta and other major social media platforms for years. The agreement with Meta, established in 2018, was slated to expire last year, according to the lawsuit.

During extension negotiations last March, Wixen reports that Meta proposed a “drastically lower license fee,” citing its extensive investment in AI technology.

“These staggering financial commitments come as Meta is building its new artificial intelligence tool, AudioCraft, which generates music from text prompts and directly threatens the future and livelihood of musical artists,” Wixen stated.

When Wixen rejected the terms, Meta allegedly resorted to “unscrupulous and ultimately illegal tactics” to pressure the publisher, including removing Wixen’s music from Instagram and Facebook.

Artists began inquiring about the removal of their music, and Wixen claims Meta misrepresented the situation by stating that the publisher had chosen to mute and block the songs.

“Meta … maligned Wixen and blamed it for Meta’s own actions, in the hopes that Wixen clients would complain and even leave, and that potential clients would avoid hiring Wixen,” the company states. “Meta’s lies caused damage and extreme disruption to Wixen’s reputation, business, and services to its clients.”

Some artists reportedly left Wixen to have their music reinstated on Facebook and Instagram. However, Meta allegedly blocked even those songs later, falsely claiming that Wixen had filed continued claims to the songs.

Now that the licensing deal is terminated, Wixen alleges that Meta continues to use the publisher’s songs without any agreement, resulting in copyright infringement damages.

“Meta knows that artists and their music, including the Works, are irreplaceable,” the lawsuit reads. “[The] future, and the present, must include Meta paying content creators fairly.”

The lawsuit accuses Meta of copyright infringement, defamation, trade libel, and illegal interference with Wixen’s contractual relationships.

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