It’s one of the strangest legal cases we’ve seen across the globe, that bred one of the most hilarious viral videos we’ve gotten in a minute. Yesterday, a judge in New Zealand officially ruled that one of the country’s political parties, the conservative National Party, who came out ahead in the last election, will be hit with a $600,000 fine, plus interest, after ripping off Eminem’s iconic track “Lose Yourself” with a soundalike in a televised ad back in 2014.
In her decision, the judge admonished the National Party by citing the song’s chorus. “And prophetically so rapped Eminem: You better lose yourself in the music, the moment. You own it, you better never let it go.”
The judge was a fan of the song, and put on her music critic hat on in her final decision noting that, “The distinctive sound of ‘Lose Yourself’…is a combination of the other instruments, particularly the guitar riff, the timbre, the strong hypnotic rhythm and the recurring violin instrumentation and the piano figure. It is no coincidence that ‘Lose Yourself’ received the 2003 Academy Award for Best Original Song. I find that ‘Lose Yourself’ is a highly original work.”
Many people became aware of this case after a video leaked out of the court comparing and contrasting both tracks, which led to this pretty incredible scene below.
Score one for justice, and as John Oliver would say in his exaggerated Kiwi accent, score one for Iminim.
