Former Eminem Engineer Pleads Guilty to Stealing and Selling Unreleased Songs
Joseph Strange, a former sound engineer for the rapper Eminem, has pleaded guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement for stealing and reselling unreleased music. The Billboard report published on 22 October 2026 gives the details of the plea.
Criminal copyright infringement means copying or distributing protected work without permission, on a scale that counts as a crime rather than a civil dispute. In Strange's case, the protected work was unfinished studio material that Eminem had never released.
Strange, who is 48, worked at Eminem's studio in Michigan from 2007 until 2021. Prosecutors alleged that he took hard drives holding unreleased music from the studio in Ferndale, Michigan. He was charged in March 2025 with criminal copyright infringement and interstate transportation of stolen goods, according to a Justice Department announcement.
The material he took was made up of studio demos, rough recordings that artists often work on before a song is finished. Strange stole more than two dozen of them. In the summer of 2024, he sold them for roughly $50,000, according to the Billboard report.
The songs then spread online. They first appeared in early 2025. Among the tracks were songs featuring the rappers 50 Cent and Dr. Dre, and a 2003 diss track aimed at Suge Knight and Ja Rule. A diss track is a song that attacks a rival by name.
The reach of the files grew well beyond a small circle. As of November 2025, the infringing audio had been accessed more than eight million times. Accessed means played or downloaded, not sold, so the figure measures how many times people reached the files rather than how much money changed hands.
Prosecutors estimated the value of the infringement at no less than $750,000. That figure is an estimate of the harm to the rights holders, not a sum Strange was ordered to pay.
Strange faces a maximum prison sentence of five years. He also faces a fine of up to $250,000, according to the Justice Department. He is scheduled to be sentenced on 27 January 2027, as the Justice Department's release states. A sentence is set by a judge, and the maximum figures are the ceilings set by law.
For the music business, the case shows how a single unreleased file can carry value long after it was made. Demos are often kept private for years, and they usually depend on tight control of who can access the hard drives and servers that store them. A studio employee with access to those files is one of the few people who can take them out the door.
For anyone who loves hearing an artist's unfinished work, the case is a reminder that those recordings were never meant to be on sale. Eminem's team did not release them, and the people who made the songs did not decide when they would reach listeners.
