Findlaw reports that US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has allowed the rap star Eminem’s claim for copyright infringement to go ahead, although she has rejected state claims for unfair competition and unjust enrichment. Eminem brought the action after Apple used a 10 year-old boy singing his song “8 Mile” in an advertisement for its iPod music player and the iTunes download service without permission after the rapper turned down a request for the song to be used. The defendant’s lawyer has said that no viewer would think that Eminem was endorsing the iTunes service.
The IPKat is a bit unclear about the reporting of this case. He doesn’t see why the fact that consumers would not think that Eminem had endorsed the service would be relevant to a copyright claim. This argument would be more appropriate for a false endorsement/unfair competition claim.
8 mile here
Eminem here, here and here
Nice blog on online music downloads. There's a new free music downloadsite you may wish to check out.
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