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7 December 2016Copyright

Jay-Z responds to ‘Big Pimpin’ copyright appeal

Attorneys for rappers Jay-Z and Timbaland have replied to an appeal filed against a copyright infringement decision last year.

The reply was filed at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday, December 1.

The suit centres on a song called “Khosara”,which was composed by Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdy in 1957. Hamdy died in 1993.

After his death, Osama Fahmy, the heir to the song’s rights, entered into a licensing agreement with Egyptian company Sout el Phan.

In 1995, Sout el Phan entered into a licensing agreement with EMI Music Arabia, allowing EMI the right to “publish” and “sub-publish” the song.

Four years later, in 1999, Timbaland collaborated with Jay-Z to create the song “Big Pimpin’”, which used a sample recording from “Khosara”.

“Big Pimpin” was released in 2000 and reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Fahmy sued Timbaland and Jay-Z in 2007 at the US District Court for the Central District of California for infringing the copyright of the “Khosara” song.

Last year, Judge Christina Snyder from the California court  ordered that the jury should not deliberate on the case.

She also granted Timbaland and Jay-Z’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, found that Fahmy lacked standing to bring the suit and declined to reach a motion for judgment.

In February this year, Snyder  ruled in favour of Jay-Z and Timbaland and dismissed Fahmy’s suit with prejudice.

However, Fahmy  appealed against the decision at the Ninth Circuit in August this year.

In the appeal, Fahmy said that the Hamdy family reserved the right to approve any modifications made to the song.

The latest suit, a  reply by Timbaland and Jay-Z’s attorneys, said that “any Egyptian moral right plaintiff retained is not enforceable in the US”.

Fahmy’s argument, according to the suit, “misrepresents the law” and “attempts to eviscerate the fundamental distinction between moral rights (not enforceable in the US) and freely transferable economic rights, which include the right to create and prevent derivative works”.

Timbaland and Jay-Z requested that the court deny Fahmy’s appeal.

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