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Legal
Eminem sues Apple over downloads
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 24 September 2009
So, I’m a bit confused by all this. Eminem’s two companies, Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated, which between them control the rapper’s publishing and other intellectual property rights, are suing Apple and Universal’s Aftermath in a dispute over the sale of Slim Shady’s music on iTunes.
The plaintiff’s claim that Aftermath do not have the right to licence Eminem’s music for download, so that, even though Apple have a licensing deal in place with Universal Music, they should not be selling Shady’s tracks.
I am a little confused as to whether Eight Mile are taking issue with Apple because they haven’t cleared the publishing rights in the songs, which are, of course, not owned by Universal but controlled by Eminem’s own company, or whether they are claiming that the rapper’s record deal with Aftermath does not give the major label the right to licence Shady’s master recordings for download. Some of the wording in Eight Mile’s legal claim sort of implies the former, though given they are suing Aftermath as well as Apple I am guessing the latter is actually the case.
Though one would have thought that if that was the issue then Aftermath, more than Apple, would be liable – because presumably they supplied iTunes with the Eminem recordings in the first place, and either way are surely obligated to tell download platforms if bits of their catalogues are not covered by label-wide licensing deals.
Apple, for their part, insist Aftermath do have the rights to licence them Eminem’s music for download. Their court filing says that in 1998 and 2003 contracts Eight Mile agreed that “Eminem would create master sound recordings embodying compositions, and that Aftermath would own those masters. The parties also agreed that Aftermath and its distributors and licensees would ‘have the exclusive right’ to exploit the masters embodying the Eminem compositions ‘in any and all forms of media now known or hereinafter developed'”.
Assuming their agreements with Aftermath didn’t grant Universal the digital rights to Eminem’s master recordings – which would be odd in this day and age, but if that was the case – then presumably Eight Mile would rather licence Slim Shady’s music directly to Apple, because they’d get a much bigger cut of the cake. Eight Mile also seem to be suggesting they should get a cut of Apple’s iPod sale revenues, which is an old argument employed by music companies in the early days of downloading that even major label execs no longer roll out. Well, not too often.
Presumably Apple and Aftermath’s lawyers will question why it has taken this long for Eight Mile to launch an action, given they must have known Eminem’s music was available via iTunes, and in deed have been receiving royalty cheques from Aftermath (and presumably any mechanical publishing collecting societies to which they are affiliated) for the millions of Slim Shady downloads Apple have sold. Pre-empting that, Eight Mile have said that their iTunes royalties were bundled in with other payments from their record company, and therefore that can’t be used as a defence in this case.
They said in a court filing: “The acceptance of a single check containing mostly royalties for authorised uses, but also containing small and hidden royalties for unauthorised uses, cannot operate as a satisfaction of a claim”.
Assuming an out of court settlement can’t be reached before breakfast, this is all due to go to court today. I’m hoping any court hearing clarifies the specifics of this dispute, because having written 584 words on this story I’m still a bit confused as to what Eight Mile are claiming.
