Eminem publisher sues Facebook

Eminem’s song publisher is suing Facebook and its ad agency, claiming they infringed the Detroit rapper’s copyright.

In the 12-page complaint, filed Monday evening in Detroit federal court, Ferndale-based Eight Mile Style contends that a Facebook ad that was broadcast online April 4 copied music from Eminem’s 2000 song “Under the Influence.”

The 30-second ad, dubbed “Airplane,” was featured in a webcast by Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to announce Facebook Home, an interface for Android phones. Some viewers at the time noted a similarity between the ad’s music and Eminem’s song.

Eight Mile Style oversees rights and licensing for Eminem’s song catalog.

The complaint claims the ad agency, Wieden+Kennedy of Portland, Ore., copied Eminem’s music “in an effort to curry favor with Facebook by catering to Zuckerberg’s personal likes and interests, and/or to invoke the same irreverent theme” of the rapper’s song.

A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment on the suit. The Free Press has contacted an attorney for Wieden+Kennedy seeking comment.

A version of the commercial featuring new music was posted to YouTube several days later. That version has also since aired on television.

The lawsuit contends the alteration “was an admission that Facebook knew it had infringed” on the Eminem song.

This isn’t the first time Eight Mile Style has taken on a tech giant: Apple Inc. reached an out-of-court settlement with the publisher in 2005 after using Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” in an iPod commercial without permission.

Audi agreed to a settlement in 2011 after using a “Lose Yourself” sound-alike song in a European promotional clip.

The Facebook Home media event took place in early April — the same week that web sleuths made headlines by purportedly turning up the old Angelfire homepage of a teenage Zuckerberg.

That site includes an “About Me” page that cites Eminem’s best-known persona: “Hi, my name is ... Slim Shady. No, really, my name is Slim Shady. Just kidding, my name is Mark.”

Further twisting the plot: Wieden+Kennedy was the firm behind Eminem’s famed Super Bowl spot with Chrysler in 2011 — which featured an authorized version of “Lose Yourself.”

Eight Mile Style had directly complained to the ad agency in April about the Facebook ad music. In an April 29 response obtained by the Free Press, a Wieden+Kennedy attorney argued that Eight Mile Style had no grounds to assert copyright, saying the Eminem song passage had itself been copied from Michael Jackson’s 1991 song “Give In to Me.”

In the letter, attorney Guy Cohen attributed the writing and production of “Under the Influence” to periodic Eminem collaborator Dr. Dre, who Cohen contended “has a long, well-documented history of copyright infringement.”

“Under the Influence” was in fact cowritten by D12 and produced by the Bass Brothers, the Detroit duo who handled much of the rapper’s work at the time.

“I find it so arrogant, after they did so well with the Chrysler-Eminem campaign, that they would say Dr. Dre stole this from Michael Jackson,” said Eight Mile Style head Joel Martin.

Even setting aside any Michael Jackson issue, Cohen wrote, the music in the original Facebook spot “simply is not substantially similar” to the Eminem song.

Moreover, he wrote, Wieden+Kennedy has “taken steps to ensure that the earlier version of (the Facebook ad) is no longer publicly available.”

Contact BRIAN McCOLLUM at 313-223-4450 orbmccollum@freepress.com.

Upon Which I Rubik's Cube

Picture, for a moment, that the reality which surrounds you is a Rubik’s Cube and your consciousness is the imprisoned, invisible sphere at the center. The 3-dimensional blocks which revolve around you keep you in your place and are, for all intents and purposes, your reality. You have full ability to move those particles around into other colorful sequences, but you are still a captive. 

Now, move back from that Rubik’s Cube and realize that there are other conscious minds out there, also imprisoned in their ‘squared circles.’ They are all imprisoned as well, albeit connected by wispful threads of consciousness which can make quantum leaps in between one another to communicate. These wispful threads are ‘the wave’--something that the sphere excels at without even trying. The functioning of the wave is something that cube itself cannot comprehend. The cube only understands rules. 

It is rather strange, is it not, that communication can still take place if we buy the argument that all our brains have to work with are these blocky logic structures. Where one man visualizes ‘cup’ in one manner, another man visualizes it in a different manner, but regardless of the differences in visualization, both parties know and can communicate what they mean when they say ‘cup.’ There is no ‘shared cup’ anywhere that both parties are referring to, but they are still able to describe what they mean and be perfectly understood. Why? Because communication between all of us occurs on the astral plane, and those hardcoded versions of the cup are elements of our own imprisonment--the squares on the outside of our Rubik’s Cube. 

The cube itself depends on the spherical consciousness at its center for all function, all movement. If the pieces are handed to us from a supposed higher power and presented to us as ‘reality’, since it is all we have to work with, how would we know that there are other worlds, other semblances, other things besides the colored squares around us? The invisible sphere of consciousness may be forced into its configuration, but there are obviously other configurations. The question is at which point we can experience those other configurations. 

Salvador Dali drew the interconnected network of consciousness that forms humanity in his painting of the crucifix in which Jesus was nailed to a hypercube. All those cubes, unfolded, becomes the cross, and humanity is made up of well over 6 billion of them, all imprisoned, with the Pheonix rising above it all. 

The ‘programming’ we all have is not only made up of the cubes that surrounds us, but also is a direct result of the color configuration that we must somehow unlock to return the cube to its restful state. We spend our entire lives doing this as we stare at other cubes around us, watching how they turn and shape themselves and work to reconfigure themselves. We notice one another’s movements, remember how they did it, and work to do the same. Our ‘free will’ is our ability to work and unlock ourselves--if we so choose. Or we can stay delirious with our colors mixed and matched. Every effort we make in life is to unlock the pure color scheme, but in the end, we remain at the center of it all, and it makes us wonder whether or not it even matters that we tried. We have that choice--to make it matter, or remain drunk at the center, unaware of the chaotic scheme of our lives around us. 

We are given a ‘preconfigured’ set of blocks around us with a certain color scheme. Every life we live, we carry it to the next until we prove ourselves to those who gave us the blocks to configure that the conscious sphere at the center can achieve what seems to be the impossible--unlocking the cube. Only then will we achieve enlightenment. 

But how does one unlock the cube? By knowing the rules and using them. The sphere believes in ignorance that the rules act against it--whereas the cube knows the rules are for the sphere and not against it at all. One who fully comprehends the ruleset are the ones who can use it all to unlock themselves. The truth, to the sphere, is that they are imprisoned by rules. The truth, to the cube, is that the sphere is not imprisoned at all, but in need of growing through limits, by understanding what it is like to HAVE rules and impossibilities. The cube provides the ruleset--the sphere is there to learn them and to follow the path towards enlightenment. 

At certain stages in life, the sphere knows the sequence it must complete. They may do so, kicking and screaming at the complexity of it all, or they may do so at peace with themselves, knowing there is no other way. It is a choice. 

We know not who gave us the cube and trapped us here, or if we are truly ‘trapped’ at all. Perhaps we entered of our own free will. Was it aliens who created the cube? God? If so, why is it harder for some rather than others to unlock themselves? Is there favoritism? And what will happen when we do unlock it? 

One set of spheres is at peace with the rules, the other set is not. I am one of those who has spent the majority of his life not at peace--one who sits, indian style, arms crossed, telling the world that I would rather be than do. But the colors remain mixed--I am delirium. I don’t play by the rules, for I believe the rules do not apply to someone who is at peace. But even though I tell myself I am at peace, no one is showing me the way out. There may be only one way--the sequence--I simply, stubbornly, choose to look for another. Did Dali, in his delirium, eventually find it? I turn my head and observe his sequence, and wonder: the first step may be to believe that our prison is not a prison at all, but a puzzle given to us by a higher power. 

I’ve written of the cube in The Hologram, in the Tetragrammaton, on pages and pages of this website. I can see it with crystal clarity when I observe the angels and their constituent demons. And now, the hypercube painting of Dali says to me one thing: try again. For there is no evidence that, at the end of this life, we will be freed from our responsibilities to unlock ourselves. That final sequence is up to us. Only then will we be cured of delirium. Only then will we cease to be puzzled. Only then will we make it home. 

The rules are there--they’re just not against you. Know them. Use them. Besides trying again, it is the only way.

Written By: Jeff Behnke