SOURCE: reuters.com/ Getty Images
A former employee of rapper Eminem pleaded guilty on Thursday to a criminal copyright infringement charge for selling unreleased music from the rapper without permission, according to a filing in Michigan federal court.
Joseph Strange, 48, faces up to five years in prison for selling several unreleased Eminem songs in 2024 for around $50,000, the plea agreement, opens new tab said
The agreement said that the tracks were later leaked to the internet and streamed between eight and nine million times
Strange worked for Eminem, whose given name is Marshall Mathers, at a Ferndale, Michigan, music studio from approximately 2007 to 2021
Strange’s conduct “undermined both legal and artistic rights,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said in a statement
“Joe Strange is a good man whose children have suffered greatly in all of this,” Strange’s attorney Wade Fink said in a statement. “It is a far more complicated and nuanced matter than a man just unabashedly stealing.”