Jay Z’s song “Big Pimpin'” was the subject of a long-running copyright lawsuit initiated in 2007 by Osama Fahmy, nephew of the late Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdi. Fahmy contended that the use of a musical sample from Hamdi’s song “Khosara Khosara” in the year 2000 hit constituted an infringement of rights he claimed to hold over his uncle’s composition. The United States District Court in Los Angeles ultimately ruled that Fahmy lacked the standing necessary to pursue the copyright claim against Jay Z (Shawn Carter) and producer Timbaland (Timothy Mosley).<\/p>\n
The song “Khosara Khosara,” composed by Baligh Hamdi, was first featured in a 1960 Egyptian film titled “Fata Ahlami.” A flute riff from that composition is repeated throughout “Big Pimpin’.” Jay Z and Timbaland maintained that the sample had been lawfully licensed to them, having paid $100,000 in total to EMI Music Arabia for the licence in 2001.<\/p>\n
The chain of rights, as asserted by the defendants, ran as follows: Hamdi had assigned or licensed his economic rights \u2014 including the right of reproduction and adaptation \u2014 to the Middle Eastern record label Sout El Phan. Sout El Phan in turn further licensed those rights to EMI Music Arabia for territories outside Egypt, from whom Jay Z and Timbaland obtained their licence.<\/p>\n
Fahmy argued that by licensing the song, his family had transferred only the economic rights and had not surrendered the moral rights attached to the composition. He contended that the use of the sample in “Big Pimpin'” \u2014 a song whose lyrics he characterised as vulgar and risqu\u00e9 \u2014 violated those moral rights, which he asserted were available to him under Egyptian law. He maintained that had he been made aware of the nature of the lyrics, he would not have consented to the use.<\/p>\n
Judge Snyder identified two determinative questions: first, whether the concept of moral rights under Egyptian law applied in the circumstances before the court, and second, whether Timbaland’s licence from EMI Music Arabia was valid. The judge indicated that only after resolving these issues would the matter be submitted to the jury.<\/p>\n
Judge Snyder ruled in favour of Jay Z and Timbaland, finding that Fahmy lacked the standing to bring the copyright claim. In light of that determination, the court held it unnecessary to submit to the jury the question of whether “Big Pimpin'” infringed “Khosara Khosara.”<\/p>\n
This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US court ruled that Osama Fahmy lacked standing in the Big Pimpin copyright case concerning Jay Z\u2019s use of Khosara Khosara. The decision underscores the legal complexities between moral rights and music licensing across jurisdictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":45,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[7571,7568,7570,7574,7569,7572,804,7573],"class_list":["post-30460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyrights","category-intellectual-property","tag-baligh-hamdi","tag-big-pimpin","tag-copyright-lawsuit","tag-emi-music","tag-jay-z","tag-khosara-khosara","tag-moral-rights","tag-timbaland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149925,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30460\/revisions\/149925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}