Spotify is not required to pay approximately $40 million in unpaid royalties owed to Eminem’s publisher, following a ruling by a federal judge in Tennessee. The case, which concluded a significant copyright infringement dispute that could have reached the Supreme Court, saw the judge accept Spotify’s argument that the responsibility for paying any owed royalties rested with Kobalt Music Group, not the streaming service itself.
In her ruling, Judge Aleta A. Trauger suggested that Eight Mile Style LLC, the publisher that initiated the lawsuit in 2019, strategically avoided addressing the licensing rights in an effort to secure a payout from Spotify instead of resolving the discrepancies earlier.
Judge Trauger stated, “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, not ones who, like 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.”
Additionally, the judge noted that Bridgeport Music, associated with Eight Mile Style, had obtained the relevant license in 2009. This indicated that, despite Kobalt’s role in collecting royalties, it had no legal authority to license the songs within the United States and Canada.
