© C Flanigan | FilmMagic
After much fall and rise, the long-winding case between Spotify and the Eminem rights company, Eight Mile Style, over the side of royalty payment for Eminem songs has come to an end with the streaming platform emerging favorably.
Eight Mile Style, the company that owns the publishing rights to Eminem’s catalog, filed a $30 million lawsuit against Spotify in 2019. It alleged that Spotify had streamed hits like “Lose Yourself” and “Without Me” for years without appropriately obtaining licenses, while the artist was receiving incomplete payment for the billions of streams those songs racked up.
However, the presiding judge did not agree. Although Spotify did not have direct licenses to stream the tracks in question, the judge decided Spotify would not be liable for any unpaid royalties. It was then ruled that the responsibility would fall upon Kobalt Music Group, the organization that had been collecting royalties on Eight Mile Style’s behalf.
It illustrated how intricate a minefield the navigation of rights and payments had become in the streaming era. Eight Mile Style accused Spotify of “acting deceptively” by “falsely” claiming to have licenses for 243 Eminem songs when they did not, adding that royalty payments by the platform accounted for “a fraction” of hundreds of millions of streams some songs received.
Interestingly, Eminem himself did not join the class action. His publicist said the artist was just as surprised as everybody else when news of the legal action emerged. His music nonetheless remained available on Spotify all through the five-year proceedings.
The judge ultimately concluded that, even though Eight Mile Style had the rights, it did not serve proper notice to concerned parties like Spotify when the licensing agreements changed. Since Kobalt was authorized to collect royalties but not license the songs, and since Eight Mile Style never clearly explained the situation, she ruled that Spotify could not be found liable for damages. In her view, the complex dealings between rights holders and administrators created space for “genuine confusion.”.
