Osama Ahmed Fahmy, the man suing Jay Z over a sample used in his song “Big Pimpin’,” is reportedly taking a different approach in his lawsuit against the Brooklyn, New York rapper.
Billboard.com reports that Fahmy is now claiming that the record company that licensed “Khosara Khosara,” the song Timbaland sampled on “Big Pimpin’,” did not have the right to do so.
The song was reportedly licensed to Timbaland via EMI Arabia. EMI Arabia had a deal with Sout el Phan, the Egyptian record label Fahmy licensed “Khosara Khosara” to.
“That’s the real problem here,” Fahmy’s attorney, Keith Wesley of Browne George Ross said in court on Monday, according to Billboard.com. “Sout el Phan said, ‘EMI Arabia, you can use it, but you can’t go out and give away rights to someone else. I don’t have authority to do that, and the copyright owner hasn’t given me rights to do that.’”
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According to Complex.com, Fahmy claims that EMI Arabia’s rights to “Khosara Khosara” expired in 2007. He also adds that in addition to the rights expiring, the label never had the ability to license the song.
Fahmy, who claims to be an heir of “Khosara Khosara” composer Baligh Hamdy, and his legal team previously argued that “moral rights” were taken advantage of due to “Khosara Khosara” being “mutilated” by Jay Z and Timbaland.
The “Big Pimpin'” trial is scheduled to take place on October 13, 2015.
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