After five years, The legal battle between Spotify and Eminem's publishing company Eight Mile Style has ended — and thanks to a legal loophole, the streaming giant has been let go.
In 2019, Eight Mile Style sued Spotify, accusing the service of acting “deceptively” by pretending to have the proper licenses to stream more than 240 songs from the rapper’s catalog. Only a portion of the music is owned by the publisher, who uses Kobalt Music Group as a royalty collection agency. In the suit, Eight Mile Style sought nearly $40 million, claiming it had not received payments for billions of Spotify streams.
This week, a Tennessee judge ruled that Spotify does not have a license to stream hundreds of Eminem-related songs, but that the streaming service is not liable for lost royalty payments. The ruling is tied to Spotify’s initial response to a lawsuit it filed in 2020 that alleged Kobalt Music Group was at fault. The service said it had been licensed by the collection agency “to reproduce and distribute the musical compositions,” according to a third-party complaint.
Tennessee Judge Aletta A. Trauger upheld the decision that even if Spotify was found guilty of streaming Eminem's catalog without the proper license to do so, any penalties imposed would have been on Cobalt Music Group for failing to collect royalties on behalf of Eight Mile Style.
“While Spotify’s handling of composers’ copyrights appears to have been seriously flawed, any right to recover damages based on those flaws belongs to the innocent rightsholders who were genuinely harmed,” Judge Trauter wrote. Music industry worldwide. “Not those who, like Eight Mile Style, had every opportunity to correct things and simply chose not to do so for no apparent reason other than being a victim of infringement pays them more than being a regular licensee.”
It was ruled that while Spotify was not liable for any damages, Kobalt would likely be liable to cover some of the attorneys' fees and expenses for the five-year-old lawsuit.
Representatives for Spotify and Eminem did not immediately respond. Rolling StoneRequest comment.
