Rappers' Delight (in stealing hooks)!

[Darth Drabek]

Judge Blocks Biggie

 

by Gina Serpe

Mar 20, 2006, 10:30 AM PT

 

Ready to Die has been deep-sixed by a federal judge.

 

Sales of the Notorious B.I.G.'s 1994 debut were immediately halted Friday after a Nashville jury determined that the album's title track sampled from an Ohio Players song without permission.

 

U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell imposed a ban on sales of both Biggie's breakthrough album and the offending song in all forms, that not only includes physical CDs, tapes and records, but also Internet downloads and radio play.

 

As the album, which has sold 4 million units to date, is still available for sale on several online music sites, it remains unclear when the order will take effect and how it will be enforced, particularly when it comes to monitoring airplay.

 

The federal jury in Nashville determined last week that "Ready to Die" had illegally used parts of the Ohio Players' 1992 funk hit "Singing in the Morning."

 

Aside from the injunction, the jury ruled that Sean "Diddy" Combs, Biggie's most famous friend as well as his record's executive producer, and Bad Boy Entertainment must pay $4.2 million in punitive and direct damages to Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records, the owners of the Ohio Players' song rights.

 

The favorable ruling was a long time coming for the two latter companies, who have filed hundreds of lawsuits against the sampling of their artists, which also include George Clinton and the Funkadelics. Virtually all the other suits have been settled out of court.

 

"We've just been battling this for such a long time," Armen Boladian, owner of Bridgeport and Westbound said Friday. "So many have been settled because companies didn't want anything to do with it, and we knew we were right."

 

Right, maybe. But not yet enriched.

 

Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy LLC, Justin Combs Publishing (so named for Diddy's son) and Universal Music, all named as defendants in the suit, plan to appeal.

 

"We think [the verdict] is without merit," defense lawyer Jay Bowen said.

 

The estate of the late Notorious B.I.G., who was born Christopher Wallace, was originally named as a defendant in the suit but later dropped.

Edited March 20, 2006 by Darth Drabek

[Surreptishus]

Kinda ballsy of them to release the album without clearing the samples. However seeing as its 12 years after the fact it seems hollow. Diddy can afford to pay.

The article mentions George Clinton, I heard that he personally never had any issues with people sampling his songs, it was his record company or publishing which held the rights and pursued these sorts of claims.

[metadigital]

Ironically, it won't be long before others can sample Notorious BIG, as copyright ends fifty years after the death of the artist ... "

[Surreptishus]

Ironically, it won't be long before others can sample Notorious BIG, as copyright ends fifty years after the death of the artist ... "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Its already happened... <_<

 

Also don't joke about biggie

[Kor Qel Droma]

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