On Thursday, Oct. 22, a former employee of rapper Eminem pleaded guilty to both stealing and selling the artist’s unreleased music. According to AP News, the former sound engineer Joseph Strange is responsible for upwards of twenty-five unreleased songs released online without the knowledge of Eminem or anyone else involved in the recording of his music.
Strange, who lost his job at Eminem’s studio in 2021, also reportedly sold stolen items such as the rapper’s handwritten lyrics and a VHS tape of an old, unreleased music video along with the stolen recordings.
Eminem, with popular charting hits like “Lose Yourself” and critically acclaimed albums like “The Slim Shady LP,” has garnered a large fanbase and public following. However, with this large following comes significant online attention when unreleased material is stolen and leaked.
| AP News, Carlos Osorio |
The leaks raise questions about what makes unreleased music valuable enough for someone to steal and sell it, especially if there are possible serious legal consequences.
“The easy answer is popularity and marketability; in this case, that pretty much seems to be the explanation, given the quoted sales figures,” said Sacred Heart University music professor Edward Allman. “But beyond the money value of the music itself, there can also be questions of ego and control.”
He believes this struggle for control often leads to plagiarism in the creative world.
“There have been cases in all genres of art of people stealing another’s work or passing it off as their own, either because they feel slighted by their associate, feel they ‘deserve more’ for
their help and support or they hope to bump up their own reputations by ‘suddenly’ producing a piece of work far better than their usual output,” said Allman.
Consumers play a large role in the world of stolen music. While some fans worry about artists being exploited, some might see an upside to bootlegs and unreleased tracks.
Junior Will Morgan believes that although bootlegs can boost classic artists, they can be harmful to a modern musician’s creative process.
“It’s hard to give a short answer to the subject. I think in some cases like The Beatles and Bob Dylan, the bootlegs are often countered by official releases. The demand for bootlegs winds up pushing their product,” said Morgan. “In modern cases though, I can see the harm. It can interrupt an artist’s creative process to have their work criticized or praised before it’s ready. However, it’s often just met with fan demand for new material.”
Sophomore Michael Russo said unreleased music can impact how fans feel about their favorite artists.
“Unreleased music gets hyped up much more than released music simply due to the tag. People feel closer to an artist if they know unreleased music. To listeners, it provides a strange sense of intimacy that tells them that they know the artist more than anyone else does,” said Russo. “It plays along into increasingly common parasocial dynamics between artists and audiences, where people have grown increasingly comfortable saying deeply troubling things to uplift their favorite musicians.”
Eminem’s leaked songs were streamed millions of times online through various platforms, potentially costing the rapper millions of dollars. Strange will begin serving his five-year prison sentence on Jan. 27, 2027.
