Last year, Detroit production team FBT Productions won a landmark lawsuit against Universal Music Group for unpaid licensing royalties from digital sales of rapper Eminem’s albums, with whom they have worked extensively. But now, it looks like Em may not receive monetary damages from the case, contrary to earlier reports that he stood to make an additional $30 million from the win.
According to Forbes’s Zack O’Malley Greenburg, Marshall Mathers did not agree to take part in the original lawsuit, possibly due to implications of an artist suing the very record label that releases his music. Since he did not take part in any of the proceedings, representatives of FBT Productions say that he will not receive any of the damages awarded from their legal victory.
“[Eminem] wouldn’t get a percentage of those damages,” said FBT Productions’ manager Joel Martin. “He’d have to go to court or negotiate with the record company.”
Yet experts indicate that Eminem is not without hope in the case. The legal precedent that FBT set in their win against against Universal – that digital sales of music should be considered a license rather than a sale, thus guaranteeing artists 50% of revenues instead of 12% – could help him to negotiate with his label for royalties.
“Our argument was very simple: that agreements between companies and artists were licenses, and that they should be paid as such,” says FBT Productions’s attorney Richard Busch “[For Eminem], the real impact is going forward. It’s impossible to calculate, as long as he keeps getting hits, but the amount of money at stake could be immense.”
FBT Productions is a Detroit-based production team comprised of brothers Jeff and Mark Bass. They produced the majority of Em’s 1999 studio debut The Slim Shady LP, as well as selections from his diamond-certified albums The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show.
shitty deal.
3 of his best albums.. Bring these dudes back into the production line-up for the next one, Em.
who cares about eminem, he hasn’t had a good album since “the eminem show”.
he is past irrelevant, another washed up rapper…
yeah cuz sellin 4 million records on this album aint shit these days…riiiight…stfu u sound like a cocksucker
@HIP-HOP: YOU ARE RIGHT!!! I ALWAYS THOUGHT THIS WHITE BOY WAS OVERRATED ANYWAY!!!
@dondiego211: Seems to me that you are the cocksucker since you ridin for that white boy so hard. I bet you can tell us all how his nut taste fuckin dick rider!!
^ Yeah, ok, we get it, you don’t like Eminem. Get the fuck outta here already, you sorry-ass bitch, this is like your second or third hating-ass, ignorant comment on this shit. Get a life.
seriously, this just makes you shake your head. what the hell would Eminem need 30 million dollars, i think he’s got way more than enough as far as $ goes already.
I am trying to start a new page for musicians that are trying to get their work out or suggestions on things they need help with. I am not a professional. But could you please send some stuff to my facebook page. Lelo505 Thank you, Leona Lowery
Who cares about this devil worshippin, overrated, drug addict white muthafucka!! Yes im hatin cause this white boy has always been overrated. His best albums were his second one and his greatest hits album encore. Other than that nothing special about this white boy. Oh wait I will say he was an above average battle rapper i will give him that. What the fuck does he need another 30 mill for he got plenty of cheese.
I know some people are gonna bash me for writing what I wrote but at the end of the day I DONT GIVE A FUCK because i never accepted this white boy as a legitimate rapper. So let the negative comments come in cause at the end of the day it costs us all nothing. Just givin my opinion and thoughts!! PEACE
Damn, that’s ignorant.
This is one of those things that I think is bogus. Em has done all the work (so to speak) to make those songs what they are and now some production company is going to keep all that money? Universal shouldnt pay a dime if thats the case in my opinion.