Geez, it's like crawling through the desert for three days with no water when suddenly somebody pops up and hands you a giant cherry Slurpee: just when we were beginning to despair of ever again relishing another stint of Apple courtroom drama (we said drama; lame-o class actions filed by iPod owners with dead batteries don't quite cut it), along comes a new lawsuit that's so thoroughly soaked in the juicy stuff, it's making its own gravy. Granted, we were probably being greedy, since Apple getting sued by The Beatles technically should be all the legal drama we need for a year or two-- but see what happens when you wish really hard? The lawsuits against Apple by big-name recording artists start to multiply! Clearly we did something really nice in a previous life.

So here's the thing: faithful viewer David Poves notes that, as reported by the Associated Press, Apple has been slapped by a lawsuit filed by none other than Eminem (or, technically, his music publisher) for unauthorized use of one of his songs in a TV commercial. You remember this thing, right? There was a series of ads for the iTunes Music Store which featured "regular shmoes" wearing iPods and singing along to various songs with wildly varying degrees of success; one of them featured ten-year-old "Jacob" rapping Eminem's "Lose Yourself." Then a weird thing happened: Jacob's ad vanished from Apple's web site and reappeared a few days later, only suddenly Jacob was rapping a different Eminem song, "The Real Slim Shady." And now we know what all that was about.

What's interesting is that the commercial doesn't contain any of Eminem's recording of the song, just the words performed by Kid Jacob; the suit alleges copyright infringement and asserts that Apple used Eminem's song in its ad in such a way that implied an endorsement by the writer. Now, personally, we never once looked at Apple's commercial and said "Apple claims that Eminem likes the iTunes Music Store"; our interpretation was always "Apple claims that kids who like Eminem and want to buy his songs like the iTunes Music Store." And while we suppose Jacob could sue Apple for making it look like he endorsed the service, somehow we doubt that'd really go anywhere.

Then again, just because we didn't think the commercial implied an endorsement by Eminem, that doesn't mean other people didn't, so we can actually see Eminem's side to this. There was a time a few years back when another web site used the AtAT logo prominently and without our knowledge or permission, and even though AtAT was listed in a "sites we like" sort of context, we still got our share of email from irate customers of that other site complaining to us because they had seen the logo and assumed we were running things over there. It happens. And Eminem may have a watertight case; his publisher reportedly has email from Apple's ad agency acknowledging the rapper's refusal to allow the song to be used and confirming that "you guys are a definite 'no' for the campaign," and the message is dated two months before the commercial found its way onto the airwaves.

So now it's up to a judge to decide whether Apple's use of the song could be interpreted by viewers as Eminem's endorsement of the advertised service. There's no word how much cash Eminem is looking to score, but the suit specifies that "any endorsement deal would require a significant amount of money, possibly in excess of $10 million." If he wins, will Eminem go on to sue Mars Inc. for making people think he endorses M&M's?