Eminem‘s publishing company Eight Mile Style has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta. The suit filed in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division and reviewed by Rolling Stone alleges that the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp has distributed the rapper’s music across its platforms without proper licensing permissions.
“Despite their not being licensed, the recordings of the Eight Mile Compositions have been reproduced and synchronized with visual content on Meta’s platforms across millions of videos, which have been viewed billions of times,” the complaint claims. “Meta’s years-long and ongoing infringement of the Eight Mile Compositions is another case of a trillion (with a ‘T’) dollar company exploiting the creative efforts of musical artists for the obscene monetary benefit of its executives and shareholders without a license and without regard to the rights of the owners of the intellectual property.”
Eight Mile Style is the owner of 243 musical compositions, including “Lose Yourself,” “The Real Slim Shady,” “Forgot About Dre,” and other notable releases from Eminem. The suit acknowledges that Meta “has removed several of the Eight Mile Compositions from its Music Libraries in the preceding months,” including “Lose Yourself,” but states that a karaoke version, a piano instrumental, and one regular cover version by a different artist are still available. “This in addition to other prominent Eminem works which remain available on Meta’s services,” the company’s lawyers claim, citing “Till I Collapse.”
The suit alleges that Meta’s “rampant infringement” extends beyond allowing users to upload copyrighted audio to its platforms. “This case involves Meta’s knowing infringement of the Eight Mile Compositions by first reproducing and storing them in Meta’s online Music Libraries, and then distributing them for users to select and incorporate into their own photos and videos made available for public streaming on the users’ WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram accounts,” the complaint claims.
The publishing company is seeking monetary damages “including actual damages, damages for the diminished value of the copyrights by Defendants’ theft of them, lost profits, and Defendants’ profits attributable to the infringement.” Alternatively, the company is seeking “maximum statutory damages for willful copyright infringement for each of Eight Mile Style’s works,” which would amount to “$150,000 per work, times 243 works, times 3 platforms,” or $109,350,000. Eight Mile Style has also requested a permanent injunction to halt ongoing infringement.
“Meta has licenses with thousands of partners around the world and an extensive global licensing program for music on its platforms,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “Meta had been negotiating in good faith with Eight Mile Style, but rather than continue those discussions, Eight Mile Style chose to sue.”
The legal filing comes less than a year after Eight Mile Style lost its copyright infringement lawsuit against Spotify after five years due to a legal loophole. In September, a Tennessee judge ruled that while Spotify did not have the proper streaming license, as the publisher claimed, any imposed penalties would have fallen on Kobalt Music Group, a royalty collection agency. In the suit, Eight Mile Style sought nearly $40 million, claiming to not have received payment for billions of Spotify streams.
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This article was updated at 4:42 p.m. ET to include a statement from a Meta spokesperson.
From Rolling Stone US
