Eminem hates ringtones. But Eminem doesn't hate them for the reason most people hate them – that they're so intrusive that they make you want to angrily snatch the phone from the moron with the ringtone on the bus and force it up their bum.
Oh no. Eminem hates ringtones because some ringtones are Eminem ringtones. And unofficial Eminem ringtones are earning money that Eminem doesn't get. And Eminem has just settled a lawsuit with one of these unofficial ringtone companies.
Nobody really seems to know what's going on with Eminem at the moment. Musically, there are rumours that Eminem has hung up his mic, and his recent Greatest Hits album will be the last we'll hear of him. That's not exactly going out in a blaze of glory, though – nobody really wants their penultimate single to go "you make my pee-pee go doing doing doing" sung in a comedy Mexican accent, do they?
And personally, Eminem's life seems to be going through the ringer, too. After a bunch of confusing statements made by Eminem on Detroit radio and all kinds of frantic rumours, Eminem remarried his ex-wife Kim in January. You know Kim; Eminem wrote a song about how much he wanted to viciously murder her. Unsurprisingly, the marriage lasted three months, with Eminem divorcing Kim in April. But there's always one thing that Eminem can control – ringtones.
Eminem has a lot of fans, and those fans want to hear a badly-synthesised 15-second burst of one of his songs every time one of their annoying friends calls them on the bus. A bunch of ringtone manufacturers sensed this need, and started to roll out a bunch of Eminem ringtones. But this just annoyed Eminem, who took five ringtone companies to court to stop them selling the Eminem ringtones over the internet. And one of these companies, Cellus US, has just settled out of court with Eminem. The details of the settlement are confidential, so we'll never know how much, if any, money will be paid to Eminem.
Ringtones aren't the thing that annoy Eminem, though. Last year he also sued Apple for using one of his songs in an iTunes advert, he's sued a magazine for printing lyrics to his songs without his permission, and he's also apparently trying to sue karaoke companies for using Eminem tunes without permission. Which would normally sound like the out-of-control actions of a power-hungry control freak but – hey, if it means we don't have to hear any more Eminem ringtones or Eminem karaoke tracks or watch any more Eminem adverts or read any more Eminem lyrics, we're happy to go along with it.
Read more:
Eminem Hangs Up Ringtone Suit – E! Online
[story by Stuart Heritage]