Former Eminem employee charged with leaking unreleased music

Rapper Eminem said “significant damage was caused” and his team is “appreciative” after his former longtime employee was charged with leaking his unreleased music online.

Joseph Strange, a 46-year-old from Holly, Michigan, was charged with criminal infringement of copyright and interstate transportation of stolen goods after allegedly leaking the rapper’s unreleased songs, Michigan prosecutors announced Wednesday. 

The criminal complaint said that to date, over 25 songs have been played or distributed on the internet without Eminem’s or his label’s consent. According to the criminal complaint, the songs were originally created by Eminem between 1999 and 2018 and were in various stages of development.

Strange worked for Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, from 2007 to 2021, when he was let go.

“Eminem and his team are very appreciative of the efforts by the FBI Detroit bureau for its thorough investigation which led to the charges against Joe Strange,” Eminem’s spokesperson, Dennis Dennehy, told Variety.

“The significant damage caused by a trusted employee to Eminem’s artistic legacy and creative integrity cannot be overstated, let alone the enormous financial losses incurred by the many creators and collaborators that deserve protection for their decades of work. We will continue to take any and all steps necessary to protect Eminem’s art and will stop at nothing to do so,” he added.

Eminem’s reps and Wade Fink, an attorney for Strange, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Prosecutors say that on Jan. 16, the FBI was contacted by employees of Eminem’s music studio in Ferndale, Michigan, after they discovered that unreleased, still-under-development music was available on the Internet.

The complaint says the employees received and recognized an image of the list of unreleased music taken from a hard drive in the Ferndale studio and being sold online.

The FBI was able to identify and locate several people who had bought the unreleased tunes, who then identified Strange as the seller.

According to the criminal complaint, Strange was one of just four employees who had access to the studio’s hard drives containing Eminem’s music.

The FBI searched Strange’s residence and found hard drives containing copies of the unreleased music and found financial records showing payment to Strange for the music, prosecutors say. Investigators also found handwritten notes and lyric sheets created by Eminem.

The FBI interviewed a man from Canada who bought the unreleased music. He said he paid $8,500 for four songs via Bitcoin and had raised the money with the help of a group of Eminem fans online, the complaint says. Overall, the man believed he sent $50,000 worth of Bitcoin payments to Strange over a six-month period and purchased 25 songs in total.

“Protecting intellectual property from thieves is critical in safeguarding the exclusive rights of creators and protecting their original work from reproduction and distribution by individuals who seek to profit from the creative output of others,” Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Julie Beck, said in a statement. 

Fink told The Associated Press that Strange is a married father of two and called the charges against his client “untested allegations.”

“We will handle the matter in a courtroom and we have great faith in the judges of our district,” he said.

If convicted of criminal infringement of a copyright, Strange faces a maximum of five years in prison and an up to $250,000 fine. Meanwhile, the interstate transportation of stolen goods charge carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison.