An aerial shot of Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park. Photo Credit: InvadingInvader
Right on cue, Wixen Music Publishing has fired off a supersized copyright infringement and defamation lawsuit – now including detailed allegations of reputational harm – against Meta.
Wixen just recently made its first amended complaint official, about four months after initially suing Meta and weeks after a counsel-to-counsel meeting failed to produce a resolution. We previously broke down the high-stakes courtroom confrontation at length.
But the short version is that the Facebook parent allegedly made Wixen a lowball licensing renewal offer as part of an alleged bigger-picture strategy to replace proper music with AI slop. According to the action, Wixen rejected the offer, and Meta allegedly responded by pulling releases associated with the publisher.
Unsurprisingly, the development didn’t sit right with Wixen clients, several of whom allegedly jumped ship due to the takedowns and allegedly “false statements” from Meta. And on the infringement front, the Instagram owner allegedly reproduced the relevant works across “thousands of reels” without permission or authorization following the agreement’s conclusion.
As for what’s new in the amended complaint, the infringement claim extends to 681 works, an increase of 343 from the suit’s first iteration. At $150,000 per infringed work, the damages math quickly surpasses $100 million.
While that’s a noteworthy jump in potential damages, the amended action’s most significant changes pertain to the defamation claim. Having originally opted for a brass-tacks overview, Wixen this time around dedicated multiple pages to describing a seemingly involved alleged effort to harm its reputation.
The way Wixen tells the story, it ceased working with “the estate of a prominent musician and songwriter” after their admin pact expired in 2024. From there, the plaintiff publisher is said to have submitted the appropriate relinquishment forms to Meta; the estate partnered with a different publisher.
Fast forward to late 2025, when the Wixen-Meta pact expired. The WhatsApp developer allegedly booted the works and then told the estate’s current publisher “that it had to remove the music because Wixen had made a claim on their music as recently as October 27, 2025.”
“In truth, Wixen had not made any claim on this former client’s music since 2024,” according to the amended suit. As such, “Meta clearly removed” the estate’s music “and lied about the reasons with the intention of harming Wixen,” per the legal text.
But the alleged fallout didn’t stop there. Boasting “many prominent clients who are also potential clients of Wixen,” the estate’s management company is said to have contacted the plaintiff about the removals.
“Meta is well aware of how the music industry functions, and that managers and attorneys will be promptly made aware of any licensing problems, particularly where Meta controls a significant market share,” Wixen spelled out.
Consequently, as the management company’s higher-ups “believed and continue to believe Meta’s falsehoods” about the pulldowns, the situation is “making it nearly impossible for Wixen to represent any artist represented by” the firm, according to the filing party.
Furthermore, a different client (described as “a successful independent record label with several prominent artists”) purportedly “forced an early termination of its administration agreement with Wixen” due to the same alleged falsehoods and takedowns.
Among other things, Meta allegedly told the client that “‘Wixen simply needs to upload some forms’” to reinstate the music at hand. Additionally, Meta allegedly kept the label’s music off its platforms even after Wixen had submitted relinquishment documents.
“Meta’s false and disparaging statements have resulted in the loss of business opportunities for Wixen because” the former client and its reps “conveyed to each of the many artists that they work with, and others in the music industry, that Wixen refuses to provide routine publishing administration services,” per the filing.
Though you undoubtedly get the idea at this point, the early admin contract termination of a third client (“a successful rock band”) is worth mentioning in conclusion. That’s because Wixen in its amended suit included an email from Natalie Echols (Facebook’s music publishing partnerships manager for North America) to the band’s management company.
In a nutshell, Echols allegedly pinned the pulldown blame on Wixen when she told the management firm that “‘publishers must resolve their ownership conflicts and disputes directly with each other,’” specified that Wixen would “‘need to deliver a bulk relinquishment file as per our standard data delivery processes,’” and encouraged the band’s new publisher to get in touch with Wixen directly.
“These statements by Meta’s Natalie Echols are false and misleading, and intended to cause harm to Wixen’s reputation and make it more difficult for Wixen to solicit clients,” the plaintiff wrote. “They further Meta’s goal of punishing independent music publishers like Wixen who demand market-rate license fees.”
