Katy Perry
Singer wins legal battle
Katy Perry can put a copyright fight behind her.
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Katy Perry has won a copyright battle over her song Dark Horse. Rapper Flame had demanded around three million US dollars.
US singer Katy Perry (37) has won a plagiarism dispute over her hit “Dark Horse” (2013) in court. This is reported, among other things, by “The Guardian”. Rapper Flame, 40, whose real name is Marcus Gray, had claimed her single was copied from an eight-note element of his 2009 song “Joyful Noise.”
Gray sued Perry and co-defendants, including Capitol Records, in 2014 and was later awarded an initial $2.8 million in a jury verdict. Perry appealed and a federal district court reversed the verdict in March 2020. A Court of Appeals judge has now ruled that Gray claims an “unlawful monopoly” over traditional “musical building blocks”. Granting copyrights to the material would limit musical creativity. Perry doesn’t have to pay the artist $2.8 million.
Another copyright dispute
British superstar Ed Sheeran (31) is currently defending himself in a copyright lawsuit against allegations of having plagiarized his hit “Shape of You”. Songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue have accused the British pop star of having a central “Oh I” lyric in “Shape of You” which is strikingly similar to the chorus of her own song “Oh Why”. Sheeran denies the allegations. He has previously been sued twice for copyright infringement. In 2016 for his single “Photograph” and two years later for “Thinking Out Loud”.