Elon Musk's X escapes most of lawsuit over copyrighted songs

FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo

(Reuters) - X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, on Tuesday won the dismissal of most of a lawsuit by 17 music publishers that accused it of infringing copyrights on nearly 1,700 songs by letting people post music online without permission.

U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger in Nashville, Tennessee said the publishers could not pursue a theory of "comprehensive general liability for infringement" against X, which Musk bought for $44 billion in Oct. 2022.