Eminem's publisher Eight Mile Style sues Spotify over copyright infringement, streaming tracks without licence

Eminem’s publisher Eight Mile Style filed a lawsuit against Spotify for copyright infringement on 21 August (Wednesday). Eight Mile said that the platform allegedly streamed the rapper’s songs without a licence, according The Hollywood Reporter.  

“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,” says the complaint.

The lawsuit adds that Spotify has categorised ‘Lose Yourself’ under Copyright Control, used for songs for which the creator’s name is not identified. The song featured in the 2002 film 8 Mile, held the No 1 position in the Billboard music charts and also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2003. The complaint calls it “one of the most famous and popular songs in the world.”

The publisher in their complaint further said that Spotify knew that Eight Mile is the rightful copyright owner of ‘Lose Yourself’ and the information was available to the platform. The rapper has about 32 million monthly listeners on the streaming service.

The lawsuit claims that Spotify has about 280 billion unpaid music streams since 2011, which amount to unpaid royalties worth $120 million.

Eminem’s publicist Dennis Dennehy said that the rapper is not a part of this lawsuit as Eight Mile Style is owned by the same group as music publisher FBP Publishing, which gave Eminem is first production and publishing deal. Eight Mile only owns the early part of his musical work, writes The Verge.  Besides ‘Lose Yourself’, the other tracks include ‘Stan’, ‘Mockingbird’ and ‘The Real Slim Shady.’

Dennehy told The Verge that Eminem and his team were “just as surprised as anyone else by this news.”

Spotify, which went public in 2018 and is valuated at $26 billion, is yet to comment on the lawsuit.