Eminem's label sues Spotify over copyright infringement

Eminem's music publisher, Eight Mile Style, is at the forefront of a legal proceeding again – after suing Apple Music and the New Zealand National Party, the music label has now locked horns with music streaming service Spotify. It has filed a case for copyright infringement against Spotify in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville division.

Eight Mile Style wants Spotify to compensate it for billions of streams of Eminem's songs which it did, allegedly without acquiring proper licenses for it.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the music publisher is raising two issues– First, it accuses Spotify of willfully infringing the copyright of Eminem's music. The suit also targets the recently passed Music Modernization Act (MMA).

The legislation was passed in October 2018 and works out the framework stating which artists, songwriters, producers, and music owners get paid when their music is used for online streaming. According to Eight Mile Style, Spotify has not lived up to their obligations under MMA.

The suit details how Spotify marked songs such as "Lose Yourself" as Copyright Control – basically declaring that the song's rights holders are unknown.

"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 complaint reads.

Eminem's label raising such concerns is definitely going to affect Spotify since the singer has a huge following on the platform – he has 32 million monthly listeners. While the singer is not directly fighting the case, his music is at the center of it. When asked about the issue, his publicist Dennis Dennehy told The Hollywood Reporter that the singer and his team were "as surprised as anyone."

Eight Mile Style is being represented by Richard Busch, who earlier represented it in a landmark case against Apple Music, which changed how online streams of music were calculated as compared to physical record sales. Busch told TechCrunch in an email statement, "a very important lawsuit for all songwriters that raises vital issues for those whose songs stream on Spotify or other Digital Music Providers."

If it succeeds, just one case of this kind may cost the streaming service millions of dollars and could even disqualify the streaming service under MMA.