For more than a decade, a legal battle between Jay Z and Timbaland and Osama Fahmy, the heir of Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdy, over the 1999 song “Big Pimpin’” has raged. Now, as indicated in an appeals court brief filed this week, Fahmy and his attorney Keith Wesley are shifting their argument back toward moral rights. It all started in 2007, when Fahmy sued the hip-hop duo for copyright infringement, claiming their song sampled his ancestor’s “Khosara Khosara” without permission. The ruling in musician Connie Francis’s case suggests a likely positive outcome for Jay Z and Timbaland in the “Big Pimpin’” case. Because moral rights did not apply to her US copyright, Francis’s case was dismissed.

Source: Forbes March 03, 2017 22:44 UTC