Katy Perry Wins 'Dark Horse' Copyright Lawsuit

The courts have ruled in favor of Katy Perry in the "Dark Horse" copyright lawsuit, according to Variety.

Marcus Gray, known as "Flame" first sued Perry back in 2014, claiming that “Dark Horse” was substantially similar to his song “Joyful Noise.” In 2019, a Los Angeles jury found Perry liable for infringement, but the verdict was overturned a year later when a judge ruled that the “ostinato” Perry allegedly copied lacked the “quantum of originality” to warrant copyright protection.

In October 2020, Gray appealed the decision and wrote in a brief about the incriminating similarity of timbre between the songs, and argued against the musicologists’ use of databases of melodies to determine instances of similarities in previous works. However, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s overturning the initial jury verdict on March 10, 2022, refusing to reinstate the $2.8 million copyright infringement verdict because the two songs only share basic “building blocks.”

"Allowing a copyright over this material would essentially amount to allowing an improper monopoly over two-note pitch sequences or even the minor scale itself,” the appeals court wrote. Perry’s win in 2020 was rare when it comes to copyright infringement cases. In 2013, the court ruled that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams had infringed upon Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” with "Blurred Lines.”