Detroit, MI (October 26, 2026)—Joseph Strange, a former employee of Marshall Mathers—a.k.a. rapper Eminem—pleaded guilty in federal court to criminal infringement of a copyright, due to his sale of stolen, unreleased Eminem music in the summer of 2024. Strange will be sentenced in early 2027.
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Previously, Strange worked at Mathers Music Studio, the rapper’s private Ferndale, Mich. facility, from 2007 until 2021 when he was let go. While he was employed there, he was one of only four people who had access to a safe where password-protected recording hard drives were kept.
At some point during his tenure, according to court documents, Strange copied multiple audio files—largely demos and rough drafts created between 1999 and 2018, although prosecutors say some tracks were distribution-ready and had been mastered. Years after his dismissal, Strange sold a number of files to fans online in July and August, 2024 for an estimated $50,000 without permission from the artist.
Those files eventually leaked online in early 2025, whereupon the FBI began investigating. A search of Strange’s home on January 28, 2025 turned up handwritten lyric sheets purportedly removed from the studio following cleanup from a flood years earlier; a VHS tape with an unreleased Eminem music video; and hard drives with an estimated 12,000 copied audio files—mostly stems—created by Mathers and others working with him. Strange was charged in federal court on March 19, 2025.
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The government alleges that, using data provided by numerous streaming providers, the leaked audio files were accessed more than eight million times by November 2025—an infringement that that prosecutors estimated to be at least $750,000 in lost potential income.
In the wake of Strange’s guilty plea, he is scheduled to be sentenced in a federal district court on January 27, 2027 and will face up to five years in prison. The FBI continues to investigate the case.
