New Zealand Conservative Party Ordered To Pay Eminem $415k
It’s not like Eminem’s ever going to have any trouble making mortgage payments, but now he just got a tiny bit richer. Back in 2014, New Zealand’s conservative National Party used a piece of music that sounded a whole lot like Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” in a campaign ad. Eminem’s publisher Eight Mile Style filed a lawsuit. And now, as the Associated Press reports, a New Zealand court has ordered the party to pay Em $600,000 in New Zealand money, which translates to about $415,000 American.
Here’s the ad in question:
The song that the party licensed for the ad is literally called “Eminem Esque.” National Party President Peter Goodfellow says that the party licensed the song from an Australian music library, which had bought it from an American company. But High Court Judge Helen Cull ruled that the party had breached copyright.
Adam Simpson, a lawyer who represented Em’s publisher Eight Mile Style in court, tells the Associated Press, “We hope that we see more original music in advertising as a result, and that writers get properly acknowledged and rewarded for their hard work.”