Eminem’s publishing company Eight Mile Style sues Meta over ‘rampant’ unauthorized use of rapper’s music

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Eminem is taking legal action against Meta, alleging that they have been sharing his music without having a valid license for it.

The firm that manages Eminem’s top-charting tunes, Eight Mile Style, has initiated a lawsuit against Facebook’s parent company (Mark Zuckerberg’s company) in a Michigan federal court. The claim is that they have been illegally storing, replicating, and disseminating the Detroit rapper’s music without obtaining the necessary licenses to do so.

The lawsuit aims to obtain a minimum of $109 million, along with a judicial decree halting various suspected copyright violations, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The complaint alleges that Meta (the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) made and saved duplicates of various songs on their servers, accessible to their vast number of users.

The legal action asserted that the company’s collection of music includes 243 tunes licensed from Eight Mile Style, which can be accessed by users.

As a lifestyle expert, I’d rephrase it like this: “From my understanding, although the recordings of Eight Mile Compositions aren’t officially licensed, they’ve been duplicated and synced with visual content on Meta’s platforms, appearing in millions of videos that have collectively been viewed over 2 billion times.

The lawsuit claimed that the primary issue at hand was about duplicating and archiving the tunes within their personal music collection, as well as urging users to play the music without obtaining proper licenses.

It’s said that the company intentionally produced and circulated the music following a breakdown in negotiations with Eight Mile Style concerning licensing rights, which was expected to be part of its 2020 contract with Audiam, a business specializing in digital music royalties collection.

Regardless, it seems that Meta has enjoyed the financial advantages by providing the Eight Mile Compositions to its users within their online offerings, according to the allegation made.

It is suggested that top Meta executives ‘proactively fostered widespread violations’ to boost ad revenue, since advertising makes up an astounding 97.8% of Meta’s overall income by the year 2023.

Although the company started taking down some of Eminem’s tracks due to licensing issues, the lawsuit also alleged that various forms of the rapper’s songs, including karaoke and instrumental versions, as well as original recordings, are still available on their platform.

According to the lawsuit, Meta’s repeated violation of the copyrights owned by Eight Mile Music composers over many years is yet another example of a multi-trillion dollar corporation unjustly profiting from the creative works of musicians, without obtaining necessary licenses or respecting the rights of those who own the intellectual property. This practice is primarily for the financial gain of Meta’s executives and shareholders.

Meta asserted to the Los Angeles Times that it holds licenses from numerous international partners totaling in the thousands and operates comprehensive global licensing schemes for music on its social media sites.

According to the statement, Meta was engaged in sincere negotiations with Eight Mile Style, but instead of continuing these talks, Eight Mile Style opted to file a lawsuit.

Back in 2013, the same company took legal action against Facebook, claiming they had utilized the rapper’s song ‘Under the Influence’ in an ad without obtaining proper permission – as was reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Eight Mile Style is asking for $150,000 per song, per platform, according to the complaint. 

The company has requested a jury trial.

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2025-06-05 06:48