Eminem publisher Eight Mile Style has sued Facebook and Instagram owner Meta over the inclusion of the rapper’s songs in the social media company’s online libraries, seemingly without securing the necessary licences. That has resulted in Eminem’s music appearing in millions of videos that have been streamed billions of times.
According to the publisher in a lawsuit filed with the courts in Michigan, Meta has been infringing the copyrights in Eminem’s songs for years in “another case of a trillion - with a ‘T’ - dollar company exploiting the creative efforts of musical artists for the obscene monetary benefit of its executives and shareholders without a licence and without regard to the rights of the owners of the intellectual property”.
Meta has “also created online tools within their services”, the lawsuit goes on, “which allow and encourage its users to steal Eight Mile Style’s music” from other uploaded videos and then include it in their own content, “resulting in exponential infringement”.
Whereas music streaming services in the US can rely on the compulsory licence administered by The MLC to cover the mechanical rights in the songs that they stream, video platforms that make use of music need to secure licences directly from music publishers or their licensing agents.
When users of platforms like Facebook and Instagram mainly inserted unlicensed music into the videos they uploaded outside of the social media platform’s app, companies like Meta could - and routinely did - claim that they couldn’t be held liable for the copyright infringement because of the safe harbour for internet companies provided by the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Providing Meta had a system via which rightsholders could get a video removed, it couldn’t be sued for the posting of unlicensed music. Or at least that’s what the social media companies argued.
However, since social media platforms have had audio clip libraries built into their apps to facilitate the insertion of music into videos, the safe harbour no longer applies. Which is something Eight Mile Style is keen to stress in its lawsuit.
“The rampant infringement of which Meta is guilty” is not simply about Facebook and Instagram “allowing users to infringe the Eight Mile compositions” by uploading videos containing those songs, the lawsuit argues.
“This case involves Meta’s knowing infringement of the Eight Mile compositions by first reproducing and storing them in Meta’s online music libraries, and then distributing them for users to select and incorporate - or ‘synchronise’ - into their own photos and videos made available for public streaming”.
In doing so, the publisher claims, Meta is “actively encouraging billions of users” to use Eminem’s music “willfully and without a licence”. As a result, the lawsuit insists, Meta “does not enjoy and is not eligible for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbour provisions”. Which means it is liable for copyright infringement.
The lawsuit notes that Meta has plenty of licences from the music industry, but uses that fact to demonstrate that the social media company knew it needed a licence for the Eight Mile Style catalogue. It also says that Meta sought to secure such a licence via its deal with licensing agency Audiam, but it was always made clear that Audiam’s deal with the social media company did not include Eminem’s works.
Since the publisher formally complained to Meta, the lawsuit adds, some of Emimen’s own tracks have been removed from Meta’s online libraries.
However, as is always the challenge when the dispute is over song rights rather than recording rights, other versions of Emimem’s songs are still available. That includes, says the lawsuit, a cover version, piano instrumental version and karaoke version of ‘Lose Yourself’.
Eight Mile Style has been quite litigious over the years, having a long running legal battle with Spotify over the payment of mechanical royalties prior to the creation of The MLC, and more recently suing a Ford dealership in Michigan which used Emimen’s songs in promotional posts on social media without getting permission. Spotify prevailed in its legal battle while the dispute with the Ford dealership was settled.