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Eminem Loses Digital Royalties Lawsuit

1:22 p.m. · March 9, 2009 · by Andrew Winistorfer

Two weeks ago, a royalties lawsuit involving Eminem fighting Universal for a bigger cut of individual song downloads (of which he only receives 20 cents or less) went to court, and the results were not what Eminem had hoped--he lost his lawsuit after the jury found that song download royalty rates should be the same as CD's, since it's the music business' new model. 

The jury sided with the music company's interpretation that a song purchased online is no different from one bought in a store.

 

"It's saying that the digital download is the modern version of a record sale," said music attorney Fred Davis, founder of law firm Davis, Shapiro, Lewit, Montone & Hayes in New York, who was not involved in the lawsuit. "And the economics to the artist are the same for a digital download as they were for the sale of a single, back in the glory years."

Eminem's company (F.B.T) stated that since there wasn't a physical product being sold, the record company had no right to take out a percentage of each song's profits for physical production. If Eminem had won, it would have had enormous implications for other major artists, who could begin suing for larger profits off of digital sales. Obviously the record companies dodged a huge bullet here. Eminem's company says they don't plan to give up the fight for higher digital royalties. [Idolator]