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Eminem’s multi-million dollar lawsuit with Apple over the online distribution of the rapper’s music will go to Michigan federal court this Thursday if an agreement is not reached. The case between Eminem’s publishing company, Eight Mile Style, and co-plaintiff Martin Affiliated accuses Apple of providing the sale of approximately 93 songs that were allegedly obtained without the appropriate copyright. The suit was originally filed in 2005 and could result in a great deal of embarrassment for Apple.

The lawsuit centers around a deal made with Aftermath records, Eight Mile Style’s parent company. Aftermath, who is also being sued by the rapper, signed off for Apple to distribute the music. But Eminem and Martin claim that the record label only had the rights to negotiate CD sales, not online distribution.
Attorneys for Apple are contradicting Eminem’s claims of copyright ownership arguing that two separate agreements were made between Aftermath and Eight Mile stating, “Aftermath and its distributors and licensees would ‘have the exclusive right’ to exploit the masters embodying the Eminem compositions ‘in any and all forms of media now known or hereinafter developed.’”

Eminem claims that Apple has wrongfully collected $2.5 million in sales from songs purchased from iTunes including $466,915 from “Lose Yourself,” the hit from the movie “8 Mile.” Some of the allegedly unauthorized tracks are still for sale on the iTunes store.