A New York judge has ruled that the word 'oh' is 'a single and commonplace word' that 'likely is not deserving of copyright protection.'
- Dec 10, 2014
AceShowbiz - Jay-Z comes out as the winner in a copyright infringement case related to his 2009 song "Run This Town". According to The Hollywood Reporter, a New York federal judge on Monday, December 8 dismissed the lawsuit brought by TufAmerica who claimed the rapper illegally sampled the word "oh" from Eddie Bo's 1969 record called "Hook and Sling".
In his ruling, Judge Lewis Kaplan explained that "the word 'oh' is a single and commonplace word. Standing alone, it likely is not deserving of copyright protection." He added, "As this motion may be resolved on other grounds, however, the Court need not decide whether the word 'oh,' as it appears in the Composition, is protectible."
" 'Run This Town' bears very little and perhaps no similarity at all to 'Hook and Sling - Part I'," the judge continued. "The melody and lyrics are entirely different." He also noted that although the word "oh" was repeated over 40 times on Jay-Z's song, it only appears "in the background and in such a way as to be audible and aurally intelligible only to the most attentive and capable listener."
TufAmerica is the same record label which in 2012 sued Kanye West for featuring a sample of the same Eddie Bo song on his "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy". They filed the suit against Jay-Z late last year. In September this year, the rap mogul responded to the suit and asked a judge to dismiss the case.
"It is black letter law that words and short phrases are simply not protectable under the Copyright Act. Thus, Plaintiff cannot state a claim based on the alleged infringement of a generic lyric such as, 'oh,' or the sound recording thereof, and Plaintiffs claims should be dismissed as a matter of law," his legal team stated at that time.
