A New Zealand political party has been ordered to pay NZ$600,000 ($412,000) in compensation in a breach of copyright suit filed by US rapper Eminem.<\/p>\n
The National Party used a track with a similar melody and rhythm to Eminem’s Lose Yourself in an election advert.
\nThe song, entitled Eminem-esque, bore only minimal differences to the original, according to a court ruling.<\/p>\n
The case, which began in May, is the latest to test the legality of so-called sound-alike music.<\/p>\n
Eminem’s music publisher, Eight Mile Style, filed proceedings after the National Party used an unlicensed version of the Oscar-winning song in a 2014 campaign advert.<\/p>\n
The party’s lawyers had argued that the track used was not actually Lose Yourself, but a song called Eminem-esque, which they bought from a stock music library.<\/p>\n
However the court ruled on Wednesday that the track was “sufficiently similar” to Eminem’s “highly original work”, adding that it did indeed infringe copyright laws.<\/p>\n
The judgment considered the drum patterns, background chords and violin tones of each version, all of which it said bore “close similarities”.<\/p>\n
“The nature of the use is not what Eminem or Eight Mile Style would endorse,” the judgment added.<\/p>\n
Eminem’s Lose Yourself, which appeared in the rapper’s 2002 film 8 Mile, is one of his biggest hits.<\/p>\n
The backing track used in the National Party’s advert, which appeared more than 100 times on TV during the 2014 campaign, had been taken from a library made by production music company Beatbox.<\/p>\n
Songs which sound similar to famous tracks – but different enough to avoid breaching copyright – routinely feature in free-to-use commercial music libraries.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A New Zealand political party has been ordered to pay NZ$600,000 ($412,000) in compensation in a breach of copyright suit filed by US rapper Eminem. The National Party used a track with a similar melody and rhythm to Eminem’s Lose Yourself in an election advert. The song, entitled Eminem-esque, bore only minimal differences to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[403,137],"tags":[623,1556,1557,1558],"yoast_head":"\n