Spotify wins lawsuit over Eminem’s publisher in licensing rights disputeBack in 2019, Eminem’s publisher Eight Mile Style took up a lawsuit with Spotify over unpaid royalties. It sought roughly $30 million [per MusicRadar] from the streaming giant, insisting that Spotify had amassed billions of streams on Eminem tracks without proper licensing rights. After five years, the ruling is in – and Spotify has come out on top.
While it’s true that Spotify apparently doesn’t have the proper licence to stream Eminem’s tracks – more on that later – a Tennessee judge found that the streaming giant will not be liable to cover the unpaid royalty bill. Instead, Kobalt Music Group – which handles rights and collects royalties for artists – will have to pay.

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The ruling came after Spotify had contested that Kobalt was to blame; Spotify claimed that it had been licensed by Kobalt to “reproduce and distribute the compositions” back in 2020, but it has since come to light that Kobalt did not have the rights to license Eminem’s music in the US and Canada, as those rights had been transferred to Bridgeport Music in 2009, per Music Business Worldwide.
Therefore, Spotify says it was misled to believe it had the rights to Eminem’s back catalogue. The streaming platform has since amassed billions of streams on tracks like Lose Yourself and Without Me, but Kobalt apparently never had the authority to give Spotify the rights in the first place.
“Eight Mile suggests that it was somehow ‘duped’ by Spotify into thinking the compositions were properly licensed to explain away why it knowingly accepted and deposited royalty payments while remaining silent for years,” Spotify contested. “Eight Mile’s story defies logic.”

Tennessee judge Aleta A. Trauger has sided with Spotify. “While Spotify’s handling of composer copyrights appears to have been seriously flawed, any right to recover damages based on those flaws belongs to those innocent rights holders who were genuinely harmed,” Trauger said.
“Eight Mile Style had every opportunity to set things right and simply chose not to do so for no apparent reason, other than that being the victim of infringement pays better than being an ordinary licensor,” she continues.
Trauger deemed Eight Mile Style’s suit to be an effort to rinse Spotify of as much money as possible. “The evidence in this case shows that Eight Mile Style was not a hapless victim, but, rather, a sophisticated steward of its copyrights that was aware that the licensing status… had fallen into confusion and simply allowed its rights to be violated in a way that would be entirely inexplicable other than as a strategic choice to manufacture infringement damages,” she continues.
“The law has long disfavoured plaintiffs who strategically exploit regimes of civil liability to maximise their own recoveries at the expense of the public good and in contravention of basic principles of fairness,” she concludes.
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