And the Music Modernization Act is right in the middle of it. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Eminem’s publisher Eight Mile Style claims Spotify has infringed on hundreds of song copyrights and is challenging the constitutionality of the MMA.
According to The Hollywood Reporter the suit accuses Spotify of willful copyright infringement by reproducing “Lose Yourself” and about 250 other Eminem songs on its service.
The Hollywood Reporter obtained a copy of the lawsuit and posted it online in its story. According to the complaint “Spotify has no license for Eminem’s compositions, and despite streaming these works billions of times, “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 suit also accuses the streaming giant of placing “Lose Yourself” into a category called “Copyright Control,” reserved for songs for which the owner is not known.
The rapper says that’s absurd. Lose Yourself was part of the 2002 film 8 Mile, it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and won an Oscar.
The suit also accuses Spotify of not living up to its obligations under the MMA.
Eight Mile is asking Spotify to pay tens of millions of dollars for the alleged copyright infringement.
