Katy Perry Wins Copyright Infringement Case Over Claim She Copied Marcus Gray
Katy Perry Wins Copyright Infringement Case Over Claim She Copied Marcus Gray
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously dismissed a $2.8 million copyright verdict against Katy Perry, Capitol Records, and co-defendants by a lower court for allegedly copying a beat from a Christian rap song.
Perry’s 2013 smash song “Dark Horse” featuring Juicy J was accused of ripping off a beat from Christian rapper Flame featuring Lecrae’s 2008 song “Joyful Noise.”
ALSO, READ Christian Magician Dustin Tavella Wins America’s Got Talent 1 Million Dollars
Flame, whose actual name is Marcus Gray, and his co-plaintiffs won a California jury in 2019. In 2020, however, a federal judge in Los Angeles overturned the verdict.
Last week, the 9th Circuit upheld the federal court’s determination, contending that the similar music notes between the two songs lacked enough originality to qualify for copyright protection.
Katy Perry Wins Copyright Infringement Case Over Claim She Copied Marcus Gray
“The district court vacated the jury award and granted judgment as a matter of law to defendants, concluding principally that the evidence at trial was legally insufficient to show that the Joyful Noise ostinato was copyrightable original expression,” the 9th Circuit’s March 10 opinion authored by Judge Milan D. Smith reads.
“We affirm. Copyright law protects ‘musical works’ only to the extent that they are ‘original works of authorship,’” the George W. Bush appointee continued. “The trial record compels us to conclude that the ostinatos at issue here consist entirely of commonplace musical elements. The similarities between them do not arise from an original combination of these elements. Consequently, the jury’s verdict finding defendants liable for copyright infringement was unsupported by the evidence.”
ALSO, READ Daystar TV Founder Marcus Lamb Dies From COVID-19 Complications At 64 Years
The court reasoned that a portion of the songs that overlap “consists of a manifestly conventional arrangement of musical building blocks” and contended that allowing copyright protection of such material could create an “improper monopoly over two-note pitch sequences or even the minor scale itself.”
The ruling comes amid years of litigation between Gray and Perry. Gray and his legal team will consider their options for appeal.
“Dark Horse” was a very successful song in 2014, spending 57 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and four weeks at No. 1.
Katy Perry Wins Copyright Infringement Case Over Claim She Copied Marcus Gray
In response to the ruling, Gray’s attorney Michael A. Kahn told Billboard: “[t]he notion that this simple, original, and clearly distinctive 8-note melody can’t be protected by copyright runs contrary to a series of simple and clearly distinctive 8-note opening melodies, including Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five,’ The Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction,’ and, of course, the 8-note opening to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. We are considering our options.”
Perry’s Capitol Records label representative, Christine Lepera, said her client was “very pleased” with a ruling that “recognized the importance of a court’s gatekeeping function in determining whether the claimed musical similarities in a case — alone or in combination — rise to the level of copyrightable expression.”
Gray’s initial argument was that his song’s success in the niche Christian market went on to have massive success, and the defendants may have gotten wind of it at the Grammy Awards or seen it on YouTube or other social media platforms where the song has been streamed millions of times.
Todd Decker, a musicologist, broke down the underlying beat in both songs during the trial in 2019.
Katy Perry Wins Copyright Infringement Case Over Claim She Copied Marcus Gray
Decker testified that the ostinatos (short melodic phrase repeated throughout a composition) share “five or six points of similarity,” including pitch, rhythm, texture, pattern of repetition, melodic shape and timbre, or “the quality and color of a sound,” as reported by Billboard at the time.
Neither Perry nor Gray have publicly addressed the final ruling.
