A former employee for Eminem pleaded guilty to illegally selling the unreleased music of the American rapper online, earning an estimated US$50,000. Joseph Strange, 48, of Holly, Mich., admitted to criminal infringement of a copyright in the Eastern District of Michigan, according to a U.S. government news release Thursday. “Joseph Strange abused a position of trust to unlawfully copy and sell unreleased music belonging to Eminem, profiting from works that were not yet authorized for public distribution,” A. Tysen Duva, assistant attorney general of the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal division, said in a statement. Strange had worked for Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, at the artist’s studio in Ferndale, Mich., from around 2007 to 2021, according to U.S. officials. In his role, he had access to password-protected hard drives containing Eminem’s music that was still being developed. Some of the music was being prepared for possible commercial release, officials said. Strange copied at least 10 audio files and content from at least one of the hard drives, according to U.S. authorities. He earned a total of about US$50,000 for selling at least 10 of the music files to buyers online. “Audio files sold by Strange were ultimately released online and made available on various public streaming platforms, without the permission or prior knowledge of Mathers,” according to the news release. The “infringing audio files” identified by the government had been accessed more than eight million times and were estimated to be worth at least US$750,000, based on data from streaming providers, as of November 2025, read the release. Strange could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in jail on Jan. 27, 2027.
