Jay-Z Is Fighting For His Right To Say 'Oh'

World-renowned rapper, producer, and money-factory Jay-Z has reportedly filed a motion for dismissal in a lawsuit brought against him by serial plaintiff record label TufAmerica over his use of a sample from 1969 in his 2009 hit Run This Town.

The sample in question — taken from Eddie Bo's turn-of-the-'70s single Hook And Sling — consists of a single utterance of the word "oh", and has previously been used by Kanye West (a fellow previous target of TufAmerica). The label claim Jay-Z's use of the "oh" was unlicensed and, thus, they are due royalties and back-payments for its use.

Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, and his co-defendants — Warner Bros Music Corp, Warner-Tamerlane Publishing, Roc Nation, Atlantic and Roc-A-Fella Records — however, don't quite see it that way. We'll spare you the heavy legalese (you can read the entire Techdirt-sourced motion for dismissal here), but the basic gist is that Mr Carter asserts the length of the sample — less than a second — is not sufficient for the content within to fall under copyright protection.

"Even if the word 'oh' or the miniscule portion of Plaintiffs Recording featuring the single word was somehow original enough to warrant copyright protection, the alleged copying here of a sound lasting a fraction of a second in Plaintiffs Works is de minimis and thus not actionable," a portion of the more-than-20-page document reads.

The defendants are currently awaiting judgment on their motion to dismiss; if it is denied, the case will proceed and the implications for sampling in music could be significant if a recording the size of Jay-Z's sampled "Oh" is found to be protectable by copyright.

This isn't the first such case the plaintiff, TufAmerica, has been involved in — the label previously sued The Beastie Boys over a similar incident, as well as having pursued the likes of Christina Aguilera (for Ain't No Other Man), and record label EMI, over a sample in a John Legend song.