A former employee of Eminem has pleaded guilty in Detroit federal court to criminal copyright infringement, 21 months after unreleased music by the rapper mysteriously surfaced online.
Joseph Strange, 48, of Holly, faces up to five years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 27.
Strange became the target of an FBI investigation in early 2025 after a host of Eminem tracks in various phases of development appeared on the internet. A search of his home turned up hard drives containing never-released audio files of music created by Eminem and associates. Agents also found handwritten lyrics and a copy of an unreleased Eminem music video stashed in a safe.
Strange had been an audio engineer at Eminem’s Effigy Studios in Ferndale, where he worked
from 2007 until his dismissal in 2021. He was one of four studio employees with access to the password-protected drives secured there.
FBI agents interviewed a Canadian Eminem fan who said he had connected with Strange and paid about $50,000 in Bitcoin for more than 10 unreleased tracks.
Effigy studio employees later confirmed that the song list precisely matched the contents of a hard drive that had been long secured at the Ferndale facility.
In a media release Thursday, Oct. 22, the U.S. Department of Justice said the illicit song files were accessed more than eight million times on various streaming platforms, with a copyright infringement value of at least $750,000.
Following the March 2025 arrest of Strange on charges of criminal copyright infringement and interstate transportation of stolen goods, an Eminem spokesman said: “The significant damage caused by a trusted employee to Eminem's artistic legacy and creative integrity cannot be overstated.”
A. Tysen Duva, an assistant attorney general with the department’s criminal division, said in a Thursday statement that Strange’s actions “undermined both legal and artistic rights.”
“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,” the statement read.
Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, applauded the work of her agency’s Oakland County team.
“Detroit has always been a city where creativity thrives, and no one has the right to steal of profit from another artist’s work without their permission,” Runyan said in a statement.
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Eminem ex-staffer pleads guilty in Detroit after online song leaks
