Meta can't toss Eight Mile's $109M Eminem licensing suit over 243 songs

Meta just lost the early fight in a lawsuit that could turn an Eminem catalog dispute into a very expensive discovery process. On June 16, Judge Brandy R. McMillion declined to dismiss Eight Mile Style's direct copyright infringement claim, allowing the case to move forward over allegations involving more than 200 songs in the music libraries across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. That single ruling is the difference between a quick exit and months (sometimes more) of evidence digging, motion practice, and costly legal mechanics.

The money at stake is straightforward and eye-popping: Eight Mile owns 243 compositions, including Eminem hits like “Lose Yourself.” Eight Mile sought maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per case of infringement. When that number gets multiplied by 243 songs and across three Meta platforms, it totals $109.4 million, which is the figure at the center of the case. Meta called the request “fanciful” and the damages claim “eye-popping,” arguing the allegations were too general to survive an initial motion to dismiss.

Judge McMillion disagreed on the direct infringement theory. In Tuesday’s order, she wrote that the complaint “states enough to plausibly claim infringing acts by Meta.” She focused on a specific allegation: that Meta “placed all 243 of the aforementioned works in the respective music libraries of all three of its platforms.” Accepted as true for the motion-to-dismiss stage, she said that fact “can plausibly be construed as constituting reproduction of the copyrighted work.” Under the Copyright Act, she explained, owners have the exclusive right to reproduce their work. So, “storage of the Eight Mile compositions, without permission, would create an unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material.”

This is where the case gets strategically interesting for executives at social platforms and other rights-reliant businesses. Discovery is not just “paperwork.” It is the phase where plaintiffs try to convert a plausible allegation into a factual record that supports statutory damages and whatever remedies come next. Evidence discovery can force companies to produce internal communications, system documentation, licensing workflows, metadata and catalog ingestion processes, and details on how user-facing music library tools map to rights management. Even if Meta ultimately wins later, being forced through that funnel has real costs and operational risk.

But the ruling is not a clean sweep for Eight Mile. The judge did side with Meta on one major part of the lawsuit: the secondary infringement claims. Eight Mile also sought additional damages based on a theory that Meta did more than host unlicensed music. It argued Meta induced billions of individual social media users to add illegal tracks to their posts. Judge McMillion said those claims fail because Eight Mile did not provide examples of allegedly infringing user posts, and she leaned on a stricter standard from the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the major record labels’ piracy battle with Cox Communications.

In her reasoning, the judge wrote that even construing the facts in Eight Mile’s favor, the court found the allegations insufficient to plausibly support an inference that Meta “actively encouraged or otherwise (affirmatively) induced user copyright infringement.” She drew a line between encouraging use of tools and encouraging infringement. “While Meta may encourage its users to use the platforms’ tools, the court is unwilling to equate an encouragement to use the tools with an encouragement to infringe, especially when the tools can be used in a non-infringing way.”

One more procedural detail matters for what happens next. The order does not specify whether the dismissed secondary claims are dismissed with or without prejudice, which leaves the door potentially open for Eight Mile to rework those allegations in an amended lawsuit. That means Meta’s job is not “case over on one issue.” It’s “case narrows, but discovery continues,” and plaintiffs often try to salvage theories that get dismissed by tightening their factual support.

For Meta, for peers building music features, and for any company leaning on digital content libraries, this is a reminder of how quickly statutory damages can balloon at the motion-to-dismiss stage when the allegations line up with the legal elements of direct infringement. For Eight Mile, it is also not their first rodeo: the publisher previously sued Spotify in 2019 for allegedly making its music available for streaming without authorization. That case went into discovery and was ultimately thrown out in 2024 after a judge criticized Eight Mile for intentionally delaying the licensing process to maximize legal damages.

In other words, this isn’t just a one-off procedural win. It is a test of how courts treat catalog-based claims when a platform includes songs in a music library without a license, and it shows the difference between surviving early dismissal on direct infringement versus getting secondary inducement theories tossed. For decision-makers, the strategic stakes are simple: if you are managing licensed content at scale, this kind of ruling can turn “we have tools and catalogs” into “we need airtight proof and rights mapping,” fast.