“An attorney for Apple defended the Cupertino company’s use of Eminem’s songs on iTunes in court Thursday, as a trial got under way to determine who had the right to offer digital downloads of the rapper’s music,” Ed White reports for The Associated Press.
“Eight Mile Style, Eminem’s music publisher, and an affiliated company, Martin Affiliated, say their contract with Aftermath Records, which controls the recordings, did not entitle it to strike a deal with Apple to sell 93 songs over iTunes,” White reports.
White reports, “The issue for the judge in the rapper’s hometown of Detroit is narrow: What do contracts between Eight Mile and Aftermath say about the ability to peddle songs beyond traditional compact discs?
“In his opening statement, Apple lawyer Glenn Pomerantz said it’s a case of ‘common sense,'” White reports. “‘Nowhere does it say only compact discs. Nowhere does it say … not digital downloads,’ he told U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor.”
White reports, “Despite the legal dispute, Eight Mile cashed royalty checks and hasn’t asked Apple to stop selling Eminem’s songs, Pomerantz said.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This ain’t ’bout nuttin’ but da bidness, right, Em?
Rap … The anal spincter of music of our era. It’s all worse than garbage
Eminem is a greedy bastages.
he should be happy to have the sales!
I don’t know which one I despise more, rap or disco. . . we need a kill rap movement. Tired of it!
Well, I do like Eminem better than most. At least his music is about real life, as opposed to bling, cars, being on a boat, etc.
If this M&M (which should be the correct spelling, if English is the language of communication) were active in the 70’s, then he could argue that the contract he had back then could not have possibly meant digital downloads, as they had not even existed. This is why we still can’t buy Beatles online. However, if you signed distribution contract in 1998 and later, you would have to specifically exclude distribution medium if you didn’t want to sell there. EMusic, the first digital music store, opened in 1998. So anything from then on had to be specifically mentioned.
M&T cannot win this, and besides, his beef is with his label, not Apple.
In my opinion, Apple should be off the hook. I see the complaint as being between Aftermath and Eight Mile Style.
I’m on a boat.
The key here is 93 songs which is $93 of music sales. This will cost each side $1,000s of dollars over $93. LOL
Errrrr…can you cash a royalty cheque and then dispute the basis on which the cheque was issued?
Where I come from, if you repeatedly cash a cheque you are effectively accepting a contract by what’s called “custom and practice”. It’s the same as turning up every day for work and accepting your salary at the end of the fortnight or whatever: you can’t then turn around and say “I didn’t sign my contract of employment”.
In any case, the only people that Apple should be defending itself against are music lovers for selling Eminem’s drivel.
Marshal Mathers is a greedy ignorant f*cking pussy. His arguement is with his stupid “label” and not with who they choose to distribute through!
He’s suing Apple, but still cashing their checks and not asking that his songs be removed from the iTunes store!?!?!?!? And Apple isn’t really even responsible, since it would appear they signed a contract with the record company. It’s the record company who appears to be at fault, if anybody. Regardless, I think it would be in Apple’s best interest to just stop selling the songs and not have to worry about this a-hole in the future. M&M;will get what he apparently wants, less sales, and it won’t make even a slight dent in Apple’s bottom line. Win-Win for everybody.
“Nowhere does it say only compact discs. Nowhere does it say … not digital downloads” .
“And Moby? You can get stomped by Obie
You thirty-six year old baldheaded fag, blow me
You don’t know me, you’re too old, let go
It’s over, nobody listen to techno ” – Without Me, by Eminem
Just substitute Marshall’s name for Moby’s…and that pretty much sums up the state of his music.
just my $0.02
It’s ‘sphincter’, but, otherwise, you’re right.
Apple should just drop the guy. He’s not worth the trouble.
@ GlassHollow,
“… we need a kill rap movement.”
Just kill the rappers – the rest will follow.
Don’t kill Flight of the Concords!
If chocolate candy boy doesn’t like it then Apple should pull his songs. No more checks to cash, dumbass!!!
How anyone can call rap “music” is beyond me. Primal grunting over a minimal background consisting of scant reference to melody or harmony and devoid of any linguistic attention to scansion, metre or rhyme does not constitute music by any reasonable definition of the term.
Quite how we got from the gifted and uplifting musicianship of artists such as Coltrane, Davies, Mingus, Ellington or Hooker to the dreck that prevalent today is beyond me: a sign of the times, perhaps.
I am similarly bemused by this specious court case. The Man on the Clapham omnibus (aka, the average Joe on the street in British jurisprudence) would be tossing this out of the court in nanoseconds, irritated at being kept from his mug and pipe for such trivial concerns. Shit like this is beginning to appear like ambulance chasing.
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” – Henry VI Part II, Act IV, Scene II
The irony of Marshall calling Moby names, then demanding Moby perform sexual favors on him should not be lost.
Next Mars Inc. is going to sue him for using the name Eminem.
Eminem first and foremost is a misogynist. Likewise he’s ageist and a thug. Then again he’s not the only (c)rap artists with these traits. Give me some acts like Bad Religion, Boy Prostitute, Geen Day or Horror Pops any day of the week.
emi.. who?
The judge should immediately side with Eminem over Apple in this case and award Eminem the full amount all of his songs are worth…nothin’!
I say he should be renamed Enima-em, since he’s nothing but dirty butthole water.