{"id":6190,"date":"2025-05-30T22:56:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T22:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/eminem-music-publisher-sues-facebook-instagram-over-song-use\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T22:56:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T22:56:57","slug":"eminem-music-publisher-sues-facebook-instagram-over-song-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/eminem-music-publisher-sues-facebook-instagram-over-song-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Eminem Music Publisher Sues Facebook, Instagram Over Song Use"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tEminem\u2019s music publisher is suing Meta over accusations that Facebook and Instagram made \u201cLose Yourself\u201d and other iconic tracks available to billions of users without permission, violating copyright law on a \u201cmassive\u201d scale in the pursuit of \u201cobscene monetary benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a complaint filed Friday (May 30) in federal court, Eight Mile Style alleged that the social media giant added Eminem\u2019s songs to its music library without the necessary licenses, allowing users to add them to millions of videos that have been \u201cviewed billions of times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMeta\u2019s years-long and ongoing infringement of the Eight Mile compositions is another case of a trillion (with a \u2018T\u2019) 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,\u201d Eight Mile Style\u2019s lawyer, Richard Busch<\/strong>, wrote in the filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tEight Mile\u2019s lawyers made a point to note that the lawsuit was not about Facebook and Instagram users uploading songs illegally \u2014 an issue heavily litigated between tech companies and music firms for years \u2014 but about the platforms themselves actively infringing copyrights.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe rampant infringement of which Meta is guilty is not a case of merely allowing its users to infringe,\u201d Busch wrote. \u201cRather, this case involves Meta\u2019s knowing infringement of the [Eminem songs] by first reproducing and storing them in Meta\u2019s online Music Libraries, and then distributing them for users to select and incorporate into their own photos and videos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEminem doesn\u2019t own Eight Mile Style, and the rapper is not involved in the litigation. A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately return a request for comment. Reached by Billboard<\/em>, Eight Mile\u2019s attorney Busch said: \u201cEverything we have to say is in the complaint.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tEight Mile Style is no stranger to copyright litigation. The company spent years suing Spotify over claims that the streamer didn\u2019t secure proper licenses before uploading Eminem\u2019s music to the platform. That case was dismissed last year by a federal judge who said the publisher had waited too long to sue.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the center of Friday\u2019s lawsuit are the huge libraries of fully licensed music that modern social media platforms provide for users, making it easy to add their favorite songs to their videos and photos. Such catalogs were an attempt to fix the chaotic early days of social media, where users would upload infringing music and sites would take it down if flagged.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe key innovation of those libraries is that they were licensed by rightsholders, but Eight Mile Style says Meta has no such license to include Eminem\u2019s music in the libraries on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Eight Mile compositions are some of the most valuable in the world, and Eight Mile Style is very protective of these iconic songs,\u201d the company\u2019s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. \u201cDefendants have enjoyed massive profits at Eight Mile Style\u2019s expense, in an amount to be determined, by copying and making the Eight Mile compositions available to Meta\u2019s billions of active daily users.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNotably, Eight Mile\u2019s lawyers say they have proof that Meta knew it needed a license for Eminem\u2019s music but had failed to secure one. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe suit claims that in 2020, Meta negotiated a music license with Audiam, a digital rights collection agency, to cover music that appears on its platforms. During those talks, the suit says the social giant \u201ctried to negotiate, unsuccessfully\u201d to include the Eight Mile tracks in that deal \u2014 and came away from it knowing \u201cthat no license was granted by Audiam or Eight Mile Style as part of those negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIndeed, these facts were confirmed by Audiam prior to this litigation, and Meta has not provided Eight Mile Style with any license authorizing its use of the Eight Mile Compositions, despite repeated requests to do so,\u201d Busch wrote in the Friday complaint. Audiam is not named in the suit nor accused of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eminem\u2019s music publisher is suing Meta over accusations that Facebook and Instagram made \u201cLose Yourself\u201d and other iconic tracks available to billions of users without permission, violating copyright […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3310,934,4585,593,4434,986,479],"class_list":["post-6190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-eminem","tag-facebook","tag-instagram","tag-music","tag-publisher","tag-song","tag-sues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}