A judge says Eminem’s publisher can move forward with a $109 million lawsuit over allegedly unlicensed songs in the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp music libraries.
A Tuesday (June 16) order, first obtained and reported by Billboard, denies Meta’s motion to dismiss the direct copyright infringement claim brought by music rightsholder Eight Mile Style. That means the social media giant will be subjected to the lengthy (and often expensive) evidence discovery process.
Eight Mile owns 243 compositions, including Eminem hits like “Lose Yourself.” The publisher sued Meta last year, alleging that its subsidiaries Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all featured its catalog in the apps’ music libraries without a valid license. Eight Mile sought the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per case of infringement, which, multiplied by 243 songs and three platforms, would add up to a whopping $109.4 million.
Meta’s lawyers called the lawsuit “fanciful” and the damages request “eye-popping.” The company argued that the allegations were far too general to survive past an initial motion to dismiss — but Judge Brandy R. McMillion disagreed, writing in Tuesday’s decision that the complaint “states enough to plausibly claim infringing acts by Meta.”
“Plaintiff alleges that Meta placed all 243 of the aforementioned works in the respective music libraries of all three of its platforms. Accepted as true, this fact can plausibly be construed as constituting reproduction of the copyrighted work,” wrote the judge. “Because the Copyright Act gives owners the exclusive right to reproduce their work, storage of the Eight Mile compositions, without permission, would create an unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material.”
The judge did, however, side with Meta to rule that Eight Mile’s secondary infringement claims should be dismissed. In this part of the lawsuit, Eight Mile sought additional damages based on the theory that Meta not only hosted unlicensed music but also induced billions of individual social media users to add illegal tracks to their posts.
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Judge McMillion said these claims fail because Eight Mile did not provide any examples of supposedly infringing posts. She also cited the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the major record labels’ piracy battle with Cox Communications, which raised the standards for such secondary infringement claims.
“Even construing these facts in Eight Mile’s favor, the court finds them insufficient to plausibly support an inference that defendant actively encouraged or otherwise (affirmatively) induced user copyright infringement,” wrote the judge. “While Meta may encourage its users to use the platforms’ tools, the court is unwilling to equate an encouragement to use the tools with an encouragement to infringe, especially when the tools can be used in a non-infringing way.”
The order does not specify whether these secondary claims are dismissed with or without prejudice, meaning the door might be open for Eight Mile to rewrite them in an amended lawsuit.
A lawyer for Eight Mile declined to comment on the ruling on Tuesday, and reps for Meta did not immediately return a request for comment. Eminem himself is not involved in the case.
This is not Eight Mile’s first time going to court over digital licenses; the publisher previously sued Spotify in 2019 for allegedly making its music available for streaming without authorization. That case made it to discovery, too, but it was ultimately thrown out in 2024 after a judge criticized Eight Mile for intentionally delaying the licensing process in order to maximize legal damages.
