Eminem has a problem with Apple, and it has nothing to do with the company railroading Google with respect to the FCC. Eminem claims Apple sold 93 of his songs on the iTunes Store without the proper distribution rights, and so he wants a couple of dollars he feels he is owed. It comes out to around $2.5 million that Apple improperly made off Eminem.
I’m torn here: Eminem used to be really good, but Relapse was largely junk. Similarly, Apple used to the “the little guy,” and now it’s going around capriciously banning iPhone Apps, and possibly misleading the FCC. So it’s hard to really “like” either party here.
What’s going on is that Eminem alleges that Aftermath Records, which put out his albums, had no right to make digital distribution deals with Apple (or anyone for that matter), and that Apple then had no right to turn around and sell his music on iTunes.
Then it devolves into boring law-talk. Bottom line is, Eminem doesn’t like that Apple has made money off his songs since he feels it never had the right to sell the songs in the first place.
All of us here at CrunchGear hope that both parties can come to an agreement, so that we can put this long, national nightmare behind us once and for all.
via 9 to 5 Mac (whose bias is way over the top here, but whatever)
I agree with your opinion, Apple has nearly turned into a corporate monster, like Microsoft, who I hate. And Eminem is basically out of things to rap about. It is not just Eminem though, the entire hip hop industry has become pretty stale.
Groups like this http://www.myspace.com/soja are picking up the slack. They play an awesome reggae, hip/hop and rock mix.
Oh no! A record company he works for put something in iTunes store and made him money! Not that!
So shouldn’t he be suing aftermath instead of apple?
Everything goes downhill once the lawyers get involved. With that said, if one of the parties violated the law, they should be penalized for it.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Apple wants to make money as a corporation to serve its shareholders? It’s amazing that.
It’s official: Illegally distributing 93 songs to millions of users is less of a crime than being a single mom doing the same to far fewer people and with only 23 songs.
Good point!
And while we’re at it, we should probably pass a law that refuses government money of any sort to any company or organization that has employees that violate the law and start holding Bank of America and AIG to the same standard as Acorn.
Thank you for putting this in the same context I was about to…
This was exactly my thoughts when i read the article
Wow, I didn’t think the record was worth 9.99 let alone 2.5 million. It kind of makes me want to put out crap and charge for it. I think I’ll skip the pissing and moaning part though.
people pay money for Eminem’s noise?
As I read the headline I laughed. They solved the problem, I think there was a little strategy behind…