Eminem's Publishers Fire Back at National

Representatives of Eminem say the National Party's claim that a copyright case against it is politically motivated is "ludicrous".

Yesterday Eminem's publishers began legal action in Wellington alleging National had used the song Lose Yourself in one of its ads.

Although the song used in the election campaign advertisements has since changed, the tune in question was being used in late August.

National's campaign manager Steven Joyce said yesterday he believed the use of the song was legal and legal action was an attempt to "shake us down" in the week of the general election.

But Joel Martin, who's representing the publishers of Eminem's music in the case, dismissed any claims of a political attack saying "Absolutely not".

"It's purely a business decision to make sure we can protect the rights."

"It's simply a timing coincidence. This has been going on the three or four weeks. It took us probably a week and a half to realise that without some kind of action they would not be pulling the ad at all," he said.

"Their defence was simply that they have the proper rights to be able to do this ad, they don't see any harm and so on and so forth. It brought is to the point where we had to do something very specific. Even though at some point they did take it down recently they exist and are all over the place and they know that," Martin said.

The fact that the ad was no longer being played did not fix the situation.

"It's disingenuous to suggest that they've effectively remedied the situation by finally, after weeks of use agreed to take it down when you can find it anywhere."

Joyce has said that other commercial organisations had also used the music in question.

Today on TVNZ's Breakfast, John Key indicated he believed the problem was a matter for the company who supplied them with the music and assured them they were legally safe to use it.

"In the end it's one of those legal disputes where I guess in the end it will all get sorted out through another process but, there's no deliberate intention to do something."

But Martin said he knew of no cases where Eminem's copyright holders had licensed music in this part of the world.

"I don't know what they're talking about. I have no idea. I know that we have never ever licences anything for a television show in New Zealand directly as it relates to some type of a commercial product," Martin said.

"I'm not sure how the licensing provisions work in New Zealand but generally speaking when somebody uses one of our compositions for commercial use they have to go to the publisher or sub-publisher in New Zealand or certainly Australia and we show no instance of any record whatsoever of [licensing] that particular song."

"They licensed this from a company who ... offered it as Emin-eske, and they [the National Party] were looking for something very specifically like Lose Yourself," Martin said.

"It's kind of like saying I bought a Gucci handbag off the street and somebody told me it was a Gucci and it kind of looks like a Gucci and it feels like a Gucci but it only cost me $10. Well if you know that Gucci bags cost a thousand dollars you would suspect that there would be something wrong, that it's probably not the real thing."

Martin claims someone would have known what they were doing. 

"It's absurd, it's ludicrous to expect that they would invest that much money in these commercials that happened beside a piece of music that just kind of accidentally invoked Eminem, that there was no thought into it? That's an insult."

The action was not done to raise the musician's profile: "I don't think Eminem needs any more publicity."