Photo Credit: Amiel Gross

LyricFind has filed yet another amended antitrust complaint against Musixmatch and its parent company TPG, alleging an underhanded scheme involving Warner Chappell Music. But did Lyricfind get cheated out of plum deals, or simply get outmaneuvered?

LyricFind has now filed its second amended U.S. antitrust complaint against Musixmatch and its parent TPG Global, alleging that the two companies orchestrated an anticompetitive scheme involving Warner Chappell Music (WCM) to shut out the competition. The intensified and expanded complaint, shared with Digital Music News earlier today, comes more than a year after Lyricfind filed a major lawsuit against its chief rival, alleging illegal and anti-competitive behavior.

Both LyricFind and Musixmatch offer music lyric licensing services to DSPs like Spotify and YouTube Music, enabling the streaming platforms to display lyrics alongside playback. Lyrics have been a fun and engaging feature for listeners and streaming services for years, though the world of lyrics licensing is anything but friendly.

Once upon a time, LyricFind was poised for a juicy payday, with the TPG-backed Musixmatch preparing to acquire their rival. But LyricFind alleges that Musixmatch stole sensitive trade secrets from the former during its vetting and due diligence processes tied to the potential acquisition. Ultimately, the buyout never happened.

Further, the company alleges that Musixmatch signed an exclusive licensing deal with Warner Chappell Music that crowded LyricFind out of key deals.

“Through its initial document review, LyricFind has already identified several pieces of highly inculpatory evidence that directly substantiate its claims and leave little doubt as to the anticompetitive nature of [Musixmatch’s] conduct,” LyricFind’s attorneys declared in their Motion to Amend.

Musixmatch, meanwhile, has argued that an IP owner (in this case, WCM) can exclusively license to whomever they want, regardless of how it may impact the lyrics provider ecosystem.

In fairness, LyricFind isn’t exactly a choir boy: the company was previously identified as having copied lyrics wholesale from Genius, a fact that became embarrassingly obvious during Genius’ case against Google back in 2019.

Ethically, the episode exposed a cut-throat and underhanded approach at Lyricfind that may have poisoned future deals and relationships. But LyricFind didn’t face any legal punishments from the theft, simply because neither company owns or controls the underlying IP of the lyrics themselves.

Fast-forward to the Musixmatch accusations, and one can’t help but surmise that some karmic justice is at work — that is, assuming Musixmatch did anything wrong.

LyricFind first filed its billion-dollar antitrust lawsuit against Musixmatch in March of 2025, accusing the company and its parent company of several Sherman Act violations and deliberately taking steps to “monopolize the lyric rights licensing market.”

The allegations stem from negotiations with Spotify, which LyricFind says were “very far along,” that would have seen the streaming service replace Musixmatch with LyricFind. Musixmatch and its parent allegedly responded to the matter by taking efforts to “extinguish the competitive threat” by inking a landmark exclusive licensing deal with WCM.

Musixmatch moved to have the lawsuit dismissed, but LyricFind clapped back with another filing, doubling down on its claims of suffering “quintessential antitrust injury.” Ultimately, Musixmatch’s dismissal arguments were rejected back in September.