Eminem dispute: former National advisers called into US case

The Eminem dispute is back – again. Two former advertising consultants to the National party have been called into a US court to give evidence.

During the 2014 election, National used music which sounded like American rapper Eminem's Lose Yourself in a campaign video.

The case went to the high court in Wellington and National initially had to pay more than $600,000 for copyright infringement. However, that was partly overturned by the court of appeal, which reduced the damages to $225,000.

But the case doesn’t appear to be going away, with two former National Party advisers – Peter Moore and Bali Virk – being dragged into a dispute in the US between Beatbox Music and Labrador Entertainment.

The new dispute

Beatbox, which provides production music to the advertising sector, has filed claims in the US district court against music publisher Labrador. Beatbox claims Labrador broke its alleged promise that certain compositions were original and free from copyright.

However, Labrador disputes that and claims Beatbox did, in fact, have knowledge of copyright concerns raised by the National party before the licence was issued.

It also claims Beatbox was under an obligation to inform it of the issue, but instead gave National an assurance there was nothing to worry about. 

Labrador wants Moore and Virk to give evidence in the case, saying they have information that can help the issue of knowledge.

Examination

In a judgment dated Oct 17, Justice Mark Woolford granted the application, saying the pair were to be examined on a series of communications between each of them and Beatbox regarding the knowledge the company had of National’s election campaign and concerns about copyright infringement.

As the claim stems back to the original case in 2015, any further delay would not surpass the seven years already elapsed, he said.

It was estimated the examination would take an hour and take place at the high court in Auckland.

The work

Moore was the director of Stan 3, a company formed to provide advertising and creative services to National for the 2014 campaign, and worked with Beatbox before the licence was issued. Virk, an employee of Graffiti Media, was responsible for investigating and obtaining the licence of the Eminem-esque song and communicated with Beatbox.