FBI: Engineer Stole, Sold Unreleased Eminem Tracks

Ferndale, Michigan (March 26, 2025)—Recording engineer Joseph Strange, 46, of Holly, Mich., faces federal charges for allegedly stealing and selling more than 25 unreleased Eminem tracks for more than $50,000 to fans who later leaked the songs online in January.

In a criminal complaint filed with the U.S. District Court on March 19, the engineer is charged with two criminal infringements of copyright, as well as the interstate transportation of stolen goods—unreleased recordings created by Marshall Mathers, A.K.A. Eminem.

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, Strange helped set up and operate the facility’s DAW system and was one of only four people who had access to a safe where password-protected recording hard drives were kept. The other three people with access were Mathers’ manager and two engineers, one of whom is Strange’s uncle, Mike Strange, who still works at the studio.

When the stolen recordings—largely demos and rough drafts created between 1999 and 2018—began appearing online in mid-January, the studio’s employees alerted the FBI. Meanwhile, Mathers contacted business associate Fred Nasser for help stemming the tracks’ release. Nasser posted an online warning to fans, imploring them not to distribute leaked music, and it wasn’t long before he was contacted by a U.K. fan with a lead: The tipster claimed the songs had come from a Canadian fan using the screen name “Doja Rat.” Both fans were soon interviewed by the FBI, and according to the filed complaint,

“Doja Rat claimed that he (Doja Rat) purchased the songs from a man named Joseph Strange, who used to be an employee of Mathers. Doja Rat claimed to have paid Joseph Strange approximately $50,000 for the music. Doja Rat stated that Joseph Strange needed the money to fund a surgery that Joseph Strange recently had. Doja Rat also said Joseph Strange is heavily involved in Bitcoin. According to Doja Rat, Joseph Strange claimed to have over 300 songs and hand-written lyric sheets that were created by Mathers. According to Doja Rat, Joseph Strange used the screen name “Dope Edit” when discussing the stolen music on the Internet.”

Doja Rat provided the FBI with a screenshot that purportedly came from Strange, showing a hard drive directory of unreleased tracks that he said Strange claimed to have access to. Current studio employees took inventory of the facility’s drives and found that the file structure shown matched that of a secured drive kept in the facility’s safe. The drive had not been accessed in years, but according to the FBI complaint, “a review of the log on this hard drive shows files being removed after the attachment of an external drive on October 16, 2019, and on January 16, 2020, during the time that Joseph Strange was employed at the studio.”

Doja Rat claimed he communicated with Dope Edit (Strange) online over the course of a few months, during which time he deduced the individual’s true identity. Confronted by Doja Rat over his suspicions, Dope Edit purportedly confirmed he was Strange. The complaint says the two eventually negotiated for Doja Rat to purchase four songs for $8,500, to be paid in Bitcoin. In the months that followed, Doja Rat worked with other fans raising money to purchase more songs, and estimated he ultimately paid $50,000 for roughly 25 tracks from Strange.

Separate to these purchases, Doja Rat said, another online group led by individuals going by the screen names “Kali Kush” and “ATL” also purchased three unreleased recordings from Strange for $1,000. The FBI interviewed both Kali Kush and ATL, and obtained records confirming financial transactions with Strange from Venmo and other sources. During the investigation, the FBI acquired various screenshots reportedly sent to the interviewed individuals by Strange, showing music files for more than 100 songs created by Mathers.

Armed with a search warrant, the FBI searched Strange’s home on January 28, 2025, where it found 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 audio files—mostly stems—created by Mathers and others working with him.

When Strange was let go from the studio in 2021, he signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of a severance package, forbidding him from distributing photos, video, audio or any confidential information related to Eminem, the facility and associated artists.

While Strange in charged in the criminal complaint, that alone is not enough to warrant a trial and is not considered to be evidence of guilt. The FBI Oakland County Resident Agency continues to investigate the case, and upon completion, prosecutors will determine whether to seek a felony indictment. If Strange is convicted on both charges of criminal infringement of a copyright, he faces a statutory maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each, while a conviction on the charge of interstate transportation of stolen goods carries a statutory maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison.