Jay Z has found himself in legal trouble again and this time it looks like Hov will have to cough up some serious money. According to The Daily Mail, Jay Z, Timbaland, and Swizz Beatz failed to credit Swiss musician Bruno Spoerri on the Magna Carta Holy Grail song “Versus,” and will now have to fork over 50 percent of the song’s earnings.
Jay and company reportedly used Spoerri’s “On the Way” instrumental on the song without permission, even though Spoerri revealed that he would have cleared the sample if they would have just asked. “On the other hand I’m furious because it would have been so simple to clear the sample. All it would have needed was a call or an email to the company and I think it would have been relatively cheap,” Spoerri said. The legal proceedings reportedly took 18 months to sort out before Jay agreed to pay Spoerri a portion of the earnings. As you can hear from the two songs below, it was a pretty open and shut case to figure out.