Katy Perry wins in Dark Horse copyright appeal

Katy Perry will no longer have to pay $2.8million (£2.1million) to a rapper who said she stole his song on her hit song Dark Horse.

Marcus Gray sued Perry in 2014, saying she plagiarized an eight-note riff from his track Joyful Noise.

A jury agreed, awarding him the $2.8 million payout, but a judge later overturned that ruling, saying the tune was not “particularly unique or rare.”

An appeals court upheld that decision, saying the original ruling could have stifled musical creativity.

In a 3-0 ruling, the court said Gray sought to claim an “undue monopoly” over traditional “musical building blocks” when he first sued Perry in 2014.

“The record of the trial compels us to conclude that the ostinatos at issue consist solely of everyday musical elements and that the similarities between them do not result from an original combination of these elements,” the new judgment reads.

“Granting copyright in this material would essentially amount to allowing an undue monopoly over two-note pitch progressions or even the minor scale itself, particularly given the limited number of expressive possibilities available when dealing with a repetitive scale Musical figure with eight notes goes .”

The verdict brings an end to the eight-year trial, barring an unlikely trip to the US Supreme Court.

The verdict will be read with interest by the lawyers of Ed Sheeran, who is facing similar plagiarism claims in the UK High Court.

The star is also accused of stealing an eight-note phrase from an unknown rapper, in this case British grime act Sami Switch.

Switch, whose real name is Sami Chokri, claims that the hook “oh I, oh I, oh I” from Sheeran’s song “Shape Of You” bears a “striking resemblance” to the chorus of his single “Oh Why” from 1999 2015 has.

Sheeran denies the claim and told the court he had never heard Chokri’s song before making his claim.

Unusually, Sheeran and his co-writers Johnny McDaid and Steve Mac took pre-emptive legal action, asking the High Court to declare that they had not infringed Chokri’s copyright.

A few months later, Mr. Chokri and his co-author Ross O’Donoghue filed their own lawsuit alleging “copyright infringement, damages and profit settlement relating to the alleged infringement”.

Testifying Thursday, Steve Mac said the case was “not about money” but “to clear my name.”

He told the court that working with Sheeran on Shape Of You was an “extraordinary experience” because the song was created “from scratch” at “extraordinary speed.”

“I had a headache at the end of the day,” he said, adding, “It was the first time I’ve written with someone like that. It was amazing.”

Andrew Sutcliffe QC, representing Mr Chokri and Mr O’Donoghue, suggested that the spontaneity was an illusion because Sheeran “had already figured out how he wanted this song to sound” and “already had lyrics and ideas that he quickly could implement”.

Mr McCutcheon disagreed, adding: “The speed that [Sheeran] writes is so extraordinary that we can write 26 songs in a week.”

The trial, which is set to last three weeks, will be heard by Mr Chokri next Monday.

Claims of plagiarism are as old as pop music itself.

Even former Beatle George Harrison was found guilty of “unknowingly copying” elements of his 1970 hit “My Sweet Lord” from The Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine” and ordered to pay the song’s composers $1.6 million pay ($8 million today).

Since the infamous Blurred Lines case of 2015, in which Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams were found guilty of copying the “feel” of Marvin Gaye’s Got To Give It Up rather than directly plagiarizing musical phrases or lyrics, there’s been one Upward trend in cases .

Many cases are settled out of court, with composers being quietly added to song credits behind the scenes.

The writer count for Uptown Funk, by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, went from six to eleven when The Gap Band noticed similarities to their song Oops Upside Your Head.

Last year, Olivia Rodrigo added two members of Paramore to the Good 4 U writers after fans began creating mash-ups of their hit and Paramore’s musically similar Misery Business.

In the past week, both Dua Lipa and Sam Smith have been hit with copyright lawsuits of their own.

Lipa has been sued twice for her song “Levitating” – the best-selling single in the US last year.

Songwriters L Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer said Levitating’s opening tune was a “duplicate” of their 1979 song Wiggle and Giggle All Night and the 1980 song Don Diablo (they apparently didn’t mind copying their own material).

Florida reggae band Artikal Sound System filed a separate lawsuit, saying the chorus was ripped from their 2017 song Live Your Life.

Sam Smith and Normani are also facing a lawsuit over their duet Dancing With A Stranger, with three songwriters saying both the song and video bore “extraordinary similarities” to their song, also called Dancing With A Stranger.

“Both songs have the same title, hook, chorus, lyrics and musical composition — and are repeated throughout the song, giving both songs their identity,” Jordan Vincent, Christopher Miranda and Rosco Banlaoi said in a complaint published in Los Angeles was submitted angel.

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