Music

Katy Perry trial: Pop star’s track ‘Dark Horse’ copied Christian rap song, court finds



A jury has ruled that Katy Perry’s track “Dark Horse” copied a Christian rap song.

The pop singer was sued five years ago by Marcus Gray – professionally known as Flame – and two co-writers who claimed her 2013 hit was stolen from his and Lecrae’s song “Joyful Noise”, which was released in 2008.

After a week long trial, nine jurors determined that the track directly copied the underlying beat of Gray’s rap song despite both Perry and producer Dr Luke insisting they’d never heard it as they don’t listen to Christian music.

Gray went on to say that they could have heard it on YouTube, MySpace or Spotify, where the song has been played millions of times, or even the Grammy Awards. The song is the closing track of Flame’s record Our World: Redeemed, which was nominated for a Grammy in 2009.

Perry had earlier entertained members of the jury after offering to perform the song live when the courtroom’s sound system failed to work.

The singer’s lawyer, Christine Lepera, stressed the belief that Gray and the song’s co-writers are “…trying to own basic building blocks of music… that should be available to everyone.”     

It will now be worked out how much defendants, including Perry, will have to pay out following the guilty verdict.

Grammy-nominated song “Dark Horse”, taken from Perry’s 2013 record Prism, was at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks.



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