Eminem Licensing Lawsuit Slammed: Instagram & Facebook Call $110M Damages Claim ‘Fanciful’

Meta says there’s no basis for Eminem’s music publisher to claim that “Lose Yourself” and other iconic tracks were made available to billions of users without permission, urging a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit that seeks an “eye-popping” $110 million in damages.  

Eight Mile Style, a publishing company that owns 243 Eminem compositions, filed suit in May against the juggernaut owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Eight Mile alleged that all three Meta platforms were hosting unlicensed versions of its songs in their music libraries, which allow users to easily add their favorite tracks to the photos and videos they post.

The publisher is seeking the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per case of infringement, which, multiplied by 243 songs and three platforms, adds up to a whopping $109.4 million. But Meta said in a Thursday (Sept. 18) motion to dismiss the lawsuit that while Eight Mile’s complaint “is long on rhetoric, it is remarkably short on specifics.”

“Fanciful estimates are not a substitute for well-pleaded facts,” wrote Meta’s lawyers from the firm Mayer Brown. “Belying their extravagant claims, Eight Mile never identifies a single example of an allegedly infringing post or story across any of the three Meta services at issue.”

Meta says that Eight Mile’s failure to identify specific instances of alleged infringement should make the case dead on arrival, since the social media giant can’t be expected to adequately defend itself against such generalized claims.  

Thursday’s motion also claims that, beyond these defects in meeting the pleading standards, Eight Mile’s lawsuit simply gets the facts wrong. Meta says it did, in fact, have permission to use Eminem’s songs, per a broader licensing agreement signed in 2020 with Audiam, a digital rights collection agency that supposedly negotiated the deal on behalf of Eight Mile.

“Far from showing ‘actual knowledge’ of infringement, these allegations instead show that the Audiam licenses covered the compositions — or, at minimum, the parties’ good-faith understanding that the licenses did,” write the Meta attorneys.

Lawyers for Eight Mile Style did not immediately return requests for comment on the motion on Thursday. Eminem does not have any ownership interest in the publishing company and is not involved in the litigation.

Meta’s motion to dismiss argues that Eight Mile Style is “notoriously litigious,” and indeed, the publisher is no stranger to copyright litigation. The company spent years suing Spotify for allegedly failing to obtain proper licenses for its songs, but a federal judge threw out the case in a sharply critical ruling last year. Eight Mile Style is now appealing that decision.