Katy Perry wins $2.8m ‘Dark Horse’ copyright appeal

Katy Perry will no longer be required to pay $2.8 million to a rapper after he claimed that she stole his song for her hit song, Dark Horse. In 2014, Marcus Gray filed a lawsuit against Perry, accusing the singer of plagiarizing an eight-note riff from his song, Joyful Noise. Jurors awarded him a $2.8 million payout, but a judge overturned that verdict in 2020 on the grounds that the “ostinato” Perry allegedly copied was too simple for copyright protection. An appeals court upheld the ruling, saying the first verdict limited musical creativity. The jury favored Perry with a 3-0 vote. The amended ruling states, "The trial record forces us to conclude that the ostinatos at issue here are fully composed of standard musical parts and that their similarities do not emerge from a unique combination of these elements." "Allowing a copyright over this material would essentially amount to granting an improper monopoly on two-note pitch sequences or even the minor scale itself, especially given the limited expressive options available when it comes to an eight-note recurring musical figure." BKM/ Expat Media
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