A US judge has halted sales of the 1994 Notorious B.I.G. album Ready to Die, after a jury decided that the title song used part of a tune without permission.

Bad Boy Entertainment and executive producer Sean "Diddy" Combs were found to have illegally used part of the Ohio Players' 1992 song Singing In The Morning, and awarded $4.2m (£2.4m) to Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records, which own the rights to the recordings.

The defendants plan to appeal. The estate of Notorious B.I.G., who was shot dead in 1997, was originally sued but it was later dropped as a defendant.