Will the real Slim Shady please pay up? The legal conflict between Eminem’s publishing company and the music streaming titan Spotify has finally concluded. After the half-a-decade battle between them and Eight Mile Style, a Tennessee court has ruled in favor of Spotify through a stunning technicality in copyright law.
Spotify And Eminem At Odds
Back in August 2019, Eminem’s publishers had sued the music platform on the grounds of copyright infringement. The Detroit rapper’s team alleged that Spotify had no license to stream any of his music and fraudulently stated that they were allowed to play more than 200 songs from his catalog. According to a Rolling Stone report, Eight Mile Style aimed to recoup up to $40 million after the move as compensation for the lack of payment for billions of Spotify streams.
In a written statement from 2019, a representative for Eight Mile alleged that Spotify had not accounted for or paid Eight Mile properly for the millions of streams of Shady’s collection of songs. Spotify’s payments to Eight Mile, per the rep, were sporadic and were small compared to the large number of streams of his music. However in 2020, according to a third-party complaint shared by Music Business Worldwide, Spotify fired back and shared that it had been licensed by the agency Kobalt Music Group to use the lauded rapper’s greatest hits.
Their rep stated Kobalt authorized them to use and play The Way I Am, Lose Yourself, Just Lose It, and more of Eminem’s hits on their platforms. The music streamer’s representative went on to state that they had a Mechanical License Agreement with Kobalt. The agreement should exonerate from claims by any third party alleging that Spotify infringed on their intellectual property or rights. Up until this point, Spotify believed Kobalt administered Eight Mile’s discography of Eminem’s songs.
Eminem Fought the Law And The Law Won
Tennessee judge Aleta Trauger presided over Eminem’s case and shared that she did not find Spotify in the wrong. Trauger stated, “While Spotify’s handling of composer copyrights appears to have been seriously flawed, any right to recover damages based on those flaws belongs to those innocent rights holders who were genuinely harmed.”
Judge Trauger goes on to state Shady’s publishers had every chance to set things right and frankly because she believed they wanted to gain more money from the case. While Spotify has won the case, Trauger did find the Kobalt Group culpable of wrongdoing. It’s assumed the licensing company will have to pay for the incurred legal fees.
Final Thoughts
This decision is a shock. While the music titan triumphed over Shady’s team, it will set a precedent in the future for how artists and fans alike start to view platforms like Spotify. The app and many more like it were conceived to bolster a larger audience for musicians and ensure they receive fair compensation for their hard work.
To say this was a surprising outcome is an understatement. Even though the music titan’s victory came about through a loophole, it’s still unfortunate what this could mean for smaller artists in the future who did not properly authorize the use of the songs they worked tirelessly to make.
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