Former Eminem employee charged in theft of dozens of unreleased songs

A erstwhile Eminem worker has been charged successful the leak of a batch of unreleased worldly from the rapper.

Joseph Strange, 46, was charged Wednesday with transgression copyright infringement and interstate proscription of stolen goods. The FBI said that respective Eminem fans paid Strange $50,000 successful Bitcoin for 25 unreleased Eminem songs successful January, each recorded by the rapper (real sanction Marshall Mathers) betwixt 1999 and 2018.

The FBI discovered thousands of tracks stored connected hard drives successful Strange’s Detroit-area home, on with handwritten lyrics and an unreleased euphony video. Strange, an audio technologist astatine Eminem’s Effigy signaling studio, worked determination from 2007 to 2021.

“Protecting intelligence spot from thieves is captious successful safeguarding the exclusive rights of creators and protecting their archetypal enactment from reproduction and organisation by individuals who question to nett from the originative output of others,” acting U.S. Attorney Julie Beck said successful a connection to media Wednesday.

Strange was 1 of lone 4 employees with password-protected entree to the material, according to the transgression complaint. “Joseph Strange helped acceptable up and run the computer/hard thrust strategy that contains the euphony created by Mathers,” it read. “This strategy is not connected to the net and lone a fewer radical person entree to the system.”

The FBI said successful the transgression ailment that it discovered the root of the leak erstwhile Fred Nasser, a longtime shaper for Eminem and Dr. Dre, posted connected societal media that his squad was actively searching for the leakers. A instrumentality contacted Nasser with records of chats betwixt him and an Eminem instrumentality (going by “Doja Rat”) who claimed to person purchased the tracks from Strange.

In a connection to the Detroit Free Press, the rapper’s spokesperson said, “Eminem and his squad are precise appreciative of the efforts by the FBI Detroit bureau for its thorough investigation.

“The important harm caused by a trusted worker to Eminem’s creator bequest and originative integrity cannot beryllium overstated, fto unsocial the tremendous fiscal losses incurred by the galore creators and collaborators that merit extortion for their decades of work,” the connection continued. “We volition proceed to instrumentality immoderate and each steps indispensable to support Eminem’s creation and volition halt astatine thing to bash so.”