Diddy Gives Publishing Back To Bad Boy Artists

Diddy chose to do the right thing over money -- evidenced in the fact that he turned down a fortune to make sure his former artists have control of their own music.

Sources with direct knowledge tell us the media mogul and Bad Boy label honcho is making an unprecedented move in the music industry right now namely, handing over the publishing rights to several of his former BB acts and forsaking a lot of cash to do so.

Sources say that Mase,Faith Evans, The Lox, 112, the Notorious B.I.G.'s estate, and others have received the paperwork that returns their publishing. BTW, Diddy is hooking up the writers who were working with him too are also getting a cut in all this.

Here's the kicker, in opting to do this -which we're told Diddy sees as the noble move -- he actually sacrificed quite a bit of dough, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Other sources say Diddy has been approached for Bad Boy's entire portfolio and was offered a king's ransom for it all but he turned that down and chose to go down this route instead.