Eminem Sues Apple for Sampling his Samples

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."

Comments

Re:It's Fair Use

[Dracolytch]

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