Eminem loses royalties lawsuit

I can't say it enough, times have truly changed when you have artists fighting for a raise in royalties on digitally downloaded music.

A royalties lawsuit filed by the controversial and outspoken Eminem, went to court a couple of weeks ago. Eminem was seeking a bigger cut in royalties on songs that he recorded that were downloaded digitally. His goal was to make more than the less than 20 cents he already does per download.

Well, the court sided with Universal Music Group on this one smashing the hopes of many other artists that would have embarked on suing their record labels for a higher share in their digitally downloaded music.

What was the reason for the courts siding with Universal? They felt music downloaded online should be worth the same amount as CD's purchased in stores since it's the music industries "new model" of business.

I can definitely see their point. As I've highlighted before, we are in a new time where almost all the shopping done by consumers are done online. There are practically no more record stores to purchase CD's, so online downloading is the option a majority of music buyers choose.

Had Eminem filed this lawsuit around the time online downloading first jumped off, for example, when iPod's first came out in October of 2001, he might have had a fighting chance.