In the ‘Dark Horse’ copyright dispute against Christian rapper Marcus Gray, a federal appeals court has given the verdict in Katy Perry‘s favour.
Marcus Gray had originally sued Katy Perry in 2014, claiming that her song ‘Dark Horse’ was similar to his song ‘Joyful Noise.’
Katy Perry was found guilty of infringement by a Los Angeles jury in 2019, but the judgment was reversed a year later when another judge concluded that the eight-note “ostinato”, that Katy Perry allegedly copied, lacked the ‘quantum of originality’ to deserve copyright protection.
Gray challenged the ruling in 2020, drafting a brief in which he argued against the musicologists’ use of databases of melodies to find instances of resemblance in past works, citing the damning closeness of timbre between the songs.
The Ninth Circuit confirmed the District Court’s decision on March 10, 2022 to reverse the initial jury’s judgment.
Katy Perry’s victory in the lawsuit in 2020 was a rare example of a court overturning a jury decision in a copyright infringement case. In the same year, Led Zeppelin beat plaintiff Michael Skidmore in a factually similar claim over ‘Stairway to Heaven.’
According to Variety, Dua Lipa is presently facing two lawsuits for her global song “Levitating,” which has stayed more than a year on the Billboard Hot 100.
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