The estate of Notorious B.I.G. has filed a lawsuit seeking declaratory relief that his song “The What” on Ready to Die isn’t a copyright infringement of the song, “Can’t Say Enough About Mom,” co-written by soul singer Leroy Hutson and Michael Hawkins.
Although the estate admits that a sampling was used, they maintain that the sample was immaterial and fair use as only “two nonsequential tones” were used, adapted, modified and supplemented. Finally, Hutson is being charged with copyright misuse for threatening legal action with alleged knowledge of no real infringement.
“The What,” was written in 1994 by Biggie, Osten Harvey Jr. (known as Easy Mo Bee) and Clifford Smith (known as Method Man).
Mo Bee was the producer, and the lawsuit says he sampled the final 1.9 seconds of “fade-out”.
Eighteen years later, Bad Boy Records was sent notice of an alleged infringement.
Over the following 18 months, the parties attempted the negotiate, but from the sounds of this article doesn’t seem like that happened.
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