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Eminem Sues Apple for Sampling his Samples

Posted by michael on from the isn't-it-ironic-don't-you-think dept.

EvanKai writes "To celebrate Grey Tuesday, Eminem sues Apple to show his support for hiphop and sampling. CBS MarketWatch is reporting that 'Rapper Eminem's music publisher is suing Apple Computer Inc., claiming the company used one of the hip-hop superstar's songs in a television advertisement without permission. Eight Mile Style filed the copyright infringement suit late last week against Apple, Viacom Inc., its MTV subsidiary and the TBWA/Chiat/Day advertising agency.' While the ad in question no longer appears, several similar ads can be found here. I can't believe Chiat Day failed to clear the use of these songs with Pink, Mariah Carey, and The Who... or whatever major label actually owns the rights."

4 of 690 comments (clear)

  1. MARS by vinnieg · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Maybe the MARS company should sue Eminem (M&M) for copyright infingement.

  2. Re:It's Fair Use by stubear · · Score: 0, Redundant

    How the fcuk is this insightful? Do yo know what Fair Use is? Apprently not or you would know this was clearly NOT fair use. This was commercial use of intellectual property plain and simple. Apple needed to secure a license with the publishing company (this is a re-recording of the song not playing the original sound recording afte rall) to use the words in such a manner. Commercial use of intellectual property does not allow for excerpts or derivatives, period. In fact, there is no fair use provisions for commercial use of intellectual property at all. It's for this reason alone that Copyright Law MUST remain intact or commercial interests will use any damn thing they want without regrad for the artists feeelings or opinions.

  3. Re:It's Fair Use by Dracolytch · · Score: 1, Redundant

    There is no such thing as fair use in advertising. When examining if a case is fair use, there are 4 main guidelines.

    Purpose and character of the use (If you're trying to use it to make money or just teach)

    The nature of the work

    Amount of the work used

    Effect fair use would cause on the market

    Of significant interest is the first. Fair use is for things such as news reports (So they could show the Superbowl 1/2 time show without paying), and education (Reproduce a portion of Moby Dick for examples of metaphor).

    Of other interest is the last. Many musicians stand to make quite a bit of money off of lending their music for ads (Crystal Method has made a killing doing this). So claiming "fair use" and having people use the song on any ad would destroy the potential commercial market for that song.

    Oh yeah, FYI: IANAL but I anal... Check it for yourself:
    http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1 07.html

    ~D

    --
    This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
  4. OMG by Mercid · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I can not believe my eyes here. When we have an RIAA artical you people come out of the woodwork about how we have to respect copyrights and such yet some rapper that you do not like tries to protect his and all you do is flame.

    GIVE ME A BREAK, if eminem owns the copyright to this song then guess what? He deserves his money. end of story.