A judge ruled in favor of a music publishing company that sued Sean "Diddy" Combs, Bad Boy Entertainment and Justin Combs Publishing over an illegal sample contained on Notorious B.I.G.'s classic song "Ready to Die..." In March of 2006 Bridgeport and Westbound won a $4 million dollar judgment in punitive damages when a jury found Bad Boy Entertainment, Justin Combs Publishing, Universal Records and Sean "Diddy" Combs guilty of illegally sampling "Singing In The Morning" by The Ohio Players. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected Combs' appeal on Wednesday (October 17), after ruling that Combs released and re-released Ready to Die with knowledge that the sample had not been cleared. "Ready to Die" was produced by Sean "Diddy" Combs and Osten Harvey Jr. and is the titled track to B.I.G.'s 1994 classic album Ready to Die.
