Katy Perry and her team are not liable to a hip-hop artist who claimed to have copied her No. 1 hit “Dark Horse” from her Christian rap song, a federal appeals court said Thursday.
According to Reuters, in a 3-0 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said that Flame, whose given name is Marcus Gray, did not deserve compensation for copyright infringement on a musical pattern. which Perry, 37, said he borrowed from his song. Cheerful noise.”
The Pasadena, California-based court said the eight-note pattern, known as an ostinato, consisted “entirely of common musical elements” that lacked the “amount of originality” necessary for copyright protection.
In July 2019, a Los Angeles jury awarded Flame and two other plaintiffs $2.79 million, including $550,000 from Perry and $1.29 million from his Capitol Records label, part of Universal Music Group.
But the trial judge, US District Judge Christina Snyder, overturned that verdict the following March, saying Perry did not independently infringe any protected musical elements.
Snyder ruled a week after the Ninth Circuit decided in Led Zeppelin’s favor in a similar case involving the opening guitar riff of their song “Stairway to Heaven.”
The appeals court agreed that the “Dark Horse” jury’s verdict should not stand.
“If we were to hold otherwise, it is hard to believe that any collection of pitches arranged in a flat rhythm could fail to meet the threshold of originality,” circuit judge Milan Smith wrote.
Michael Kahn, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said his clients were considering their legal options.
He said that not granting protection to “Joyful Noise” “works against a series of simple and clearly distinctive 8-note opening melodies” such as in Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”, the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” and the Fifth Symphony. of Beethoven.
Perry’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Christine Lepera, an attorney for producers Cirkut, Capitol and Perry’s Dr. Luke and Max Martin, said they were “very pleased” with the decision.
“Dark Horse” appeared on Perry’s “Prism” album in 2013 and spent four weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 2014…Reuters