Entertainment
Spotify Sued By Eminem Publisher Over Billions of Unpaid Streams

(Bloomberg) — Eminem’s music publisher sued Spotify USA for copyright infringement for allegedly streaming hundreds of the American rapper’s songs billions of times without a license. Eight Mile Style filed the suit Wednesday in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee. It claims Spotify intentionally ripped off the artist, whose legal name is Marshall Mathers, by pretending to have the rights to stream the songs under various generic licenses.
“Spotify has not accounted to Eight Mile or paid Eight Mile for these streams but instead remitted random payments of some sort, which only purport to account for a fraction of those streams,” the Ferndale, Michigan-based publisher said.
We Won’t Be Silenced: Afghan Female Musicians
Spotify also claimed it didn’t know who held the copyright to Eminem’s hit song “Lose Yourself” — winner of the Best Original Song at the 2003 Academy Awards — which is described in the lawsuit as “one of the most famous and popular songs in the world.”
Spotify “certainly knew (and had the easy means to know) that Eight Mile is the copyright owner of ‘Lose Yourself,’” the publisher said. “With commercially reasonable efforts, that information was certainly available to them.”
At times, Spotify claimed to have a so-called compulsory license, which allows for songs to be used if a fee, set by the U.S. Copyright Office, is paid, according to the lawsuit.
The suit relates to 243 songs that Eight Mile co-owns and administers. Eight Mile claims Spotify had about 280 billion unpaid music streams from 2011, resulting in unpaid royalties of as much as $120 million.
Spotify’s press office didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the lawsuit.
Eight Mile says major record labels own a combined 16% of Spotify, and that its successful initial public offering allows the labels “to potentially generate billions of dollars, none of which they need to share with the copyright creators, performing artists, or songwriters.”
Spotify has built a business, currently valued at $26 billion, “with no assets other than the recordings of songs by songwriters like Eminem made available to stream on demand to consumers,” Eight Mile said. Spotify shares fell 1.6% to $145.76 on Wednesday.
The arrangement with the record labels gave them a reason to ignore Spotify’s practice of streaming without a license, according to the lawsuit.
The labels “had no incentive to pursue or truly hold Spotify accountable for its actions,” the Eight Mile said.
The case is Eight Mile Style LLC v. Spotify USA Inc., 19-cv-00736, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee (Nashville).
-
OER Magazines2 months ago
OER, April 25
-
Alamaliktistaad Magazines2 months ago
Al-Iktisaad, April 25
-
Renewables1 month ago
Jindal Renewables and OQ Alternative Energy Sign Joint Development Agreement to Advance Integrated Renewable Power Projects in Oman
-
Business2 months ago
St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2025 unveils its Business Programme
-
Leaders Speak1 month ago
OERLive SPOTLIGHT: Oman Sustainability Week 2025 and Oman Petroleum & Energy Show
-
Alamaliktistaad Magazines4 weeks ago
Al-Iktisaad, May 25
-
Banking & Finance2 months ago
How is National Bank of Oman Working Towards Creating a Robust Fintech Ecosystem?
-
Banking & Finance2 months ago
How Bank Muscat is Pioneering Digital Solutions to Empower Customers
You must be logged in to post a comment Login