LyricFind and Musixmatch shipped rival land-grab products, then told the court they will not mediate

On September 2, Musixmatch and LyricFind each launched a product aimed at locking up the other’s supply. On September 3, the two companies told a US federal court they cannot even agree to start mediation in the antitrust case one has filed against the other.

The two firms sit on the layer that turns a recording into readable, searchable text. That layer feeds Spotify, TikTok and YouTube. It is also the layer language models train on.

What LyricFind and Musixmatch told the court

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ordered the parties toward mediation back in May. Months of talks produced a joint letter saying it will not happen.

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The parties are not in agreement on whether a mediation at this point in time would be productive given their respective settlement positions.

LyricFind said it is open to mediating despite the gap. Musixmatch and TPG, its investor and co-defendant, said they are not open to it, citing that same gap. Both sides said they remain open to talking at some point, which is what parties say when nothing is scheduled.

Digital Music News published the letter first.

Why the Warner Chappell exclusive is the whole fight

LyricFind sued in March 2025. Its second amended complaint, filed in May 2026, runs past 80 pages, and the core allegation is short.

LyricFind says it was leading the lyric-provider market and closing on a large Spotify deal. TPG allegedly tried to buy the company in 2023. When that failed, LyricFind says the strategy shifted to exclusive publisher deals, and Warner Chappell took one, paid “a significant premium, worth millions of dollars each year”.

The effect LyricFind describes: Spotify and every other major DSP now has to buy Warner Chappell lyrics through Musixmatch, at prices LyricFind calls monopolistic.

Musixmatch called the suit “meritless” in its motion to dismiss, and “a textbook example of a disappointed competitor seeking to use the courts to achieve what it could not in the marketplace”. In September 2025 Judge Corley threw out parts of the case and let the core of it proceed, writing that LyricFind “plausibly alleges Musixmatch entered an exclusive agreement causing injury of the type antitrust laws are intended to prevent and substantially foreclosing competition”.

What Musixmatch Pro for Labels gives record companies

Musixmatch Pro for Labels is a hub for managing lyrics across a roster. It bundles AI transcription and time-syncing, human curators, distribution to supported DSPs and social platforms, and a catalog audit that flags which releases have gaps.

Labels can prepare and sync lyrics before a song is released, handle translations, build lyric-driven promo assets, and read an analytics dashboard comparing artist performance.

The pitch rests on a number Musixmatch commissioned from MIDiA Research.

Musixmatch also claims that listeners who engage deeply with lyrics are close to four times likelier to buy merchandise and twice as likely to attend a show. Those figures come from Musixmatch, selling a Musixmatch product, and no methodology was published.

Rio Caraeff, Co-President at Musixmatch, framed it this way: “You don’t build lasting fan relationships simply by asking people to listen more, you build them by giving people more intimacy and emotion to connect with.”

What LyricFind’s Verified Artist Program gives artists

LyricFind went the other direction and skipped the label entirely.

The Verified Artist Program is free for artists and labels. An artist claims their catalogue and then controls their own lyrics across the 100-plus platforms LyricFind supplies, a list that includes Google, TikTok, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer and Pandora. You upload existing lyric files, or hand LyricFind your audio and let its Transcribe and Sync tool do it.

Why lyric data is worth this much fighting

Musixmatch has been building music data for 16 years out of Bologna, and says its database is trusted by more than 250,000 rights owners and publishers and close to three million songwriters, across 250-plus languages.

In October 2025 it signed AI licensing deals with Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner Chappell, covering more than 15 million works. Five months later it launched Sentinel, which detects when copyrighted lyrics turn up inside AI output.

Lyrics are the one part of a song that a language model can read directly. Every other music-AI dispute is still being fought over whether training was permitted. In lyrics, the licences already exist, they are already exclusive, and two companies are in federal court over who gets to hold them.

If you release music, go and claim your catalogue on LyricFind. Your lyrics are showing up on Spotify, TikTok and YouTube whether or not you put them there, and correcting them now costs nothing.