Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready To Die Gets Pulled Over Sampling Lawsuit
Notorious B.I.G.'s landmark Ready To Die album makes heavy use of samples. But one wasn't listed in the liner notes and it's due to this slip-up that a judge halted sales of the rapper's 1994 debut on March 17.
A jury decided that the title song from the album used a sample from the Ohio Players song "Singing In The Morning" without proper permission. The court awarded $4.2 million U.S. to the two companies that own the rights to the Ohio Players recordings, and U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell ordered a halt on both physical album sales and downloads as well as radio play.
"We've just been battling this for such a long time," said Armen Boladian, the owner of Westbound and Bridgeport, the companies that hold the song rights and have filed more than 400 sampling lawsuits, said in an MTV News report. "So many have been settled because companies didn't want anything to do with it, and we knew we were right."
The defendants in the case were Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy LLC, Justin Combs Publishing and Universal Records, and they plan to appeal the decision.
In other Notorious B.I.G. news, the Los Angeles Police Department has assigned a new team of detectives to re-investigate the rapper's 1997 murder. The department was ordered to pay a $1.1 million judgment to Biggie's family in January as part of a suit that alleged that a police officer was involved in his shooting. A mistrial was called in the case because police found that previously undisclosed statements, which linked LAPD officer David Mack to the crime, were purposefully concealed. A new trial could be set for later this year.
Notorious B.I.G.'s landmark Ready To Die album makes heavy use of samples. But one wasn't listed in the liner notes and it's due to this slip-up that a judge halted sales of the rapper's 1994 debut on March 17.
A jury decided that the title song from the album used a sample from the Ohio Players song "Singing In The Morning" without proper permission. The court awarded $4.2 million U.S. to the two companies that own the rights to the Ohio Players recordings, and U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell ordered a halt on both physical album sales and downloads as well as radio play.
"We've just been battling this for such a long time," said Armen Boladian, the owner of Westbound and Bridgeport, the companies that hold the song rights and have filed more than 400 sampling lawsuits, said in an MTV News report. "So many have been settled because companies didn't want anything to do with it, and we knew we were right."
The defendants in the case were Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy LLC, Justin Combs Publishing and Universal Records, and they plan to appeal the decision.
In other Notorious B.I.G. news, the Los Angeles Police Department has assigned a new team of detectives to re-investigate the rapper's 1997 murder. The department was ordered to pay a $1.1 million judgment to Biggie's family in January as part of a suit that alleged that a police officer was involved in his shooting. A mistrial was called in the case because police found that previously undisclosed statements, which linked LAPD officer David Mack to the crime, were purposefully concealed. A new trial could be set for later this year.
