Capitol Records
A Federal jury has ordered Katy Perry and her co-defendants to pay total damages of nearly $2.8 million for copying another song for her hit, “Dark Horse.”
The jury found 22.5% of the net profits made by the song should be given to the plaintiffs.
Perry herself is liable for just over $550,000. Nine other people or entities, including Katy’s record label, Capitol; the rapper featured on the song, Juicy J; and the song’s producer, Doctor Luke, have to pay anywhere from $1.3 million to $61,000.
On Monday, a jury in Los Angeles federal court agreed with Christian rapper Marcus Gray, aka Flame, that Katy copied the beat of his 2008 song, “Joyful Noise” for the 2013 hit single from her Prism album.
During closing arguments Friday, lawyers for Gray argued that the beat from “Joyful Noise” makes up 45% of “Dark Horse” — that’s 95 seconds — and so had originally sought 45% of the profits from the song.
“The entire song was built on that beat, without that beat there wouldn’t be a song or millions of money,” Michael Kahn, an attorney for Gray, said in court.
During the seven-day trial, Katy testified that she’d never heard “Joyful Noise” before.
The plaintiffs, however, argued that Katy’s parents are both pastors and she started her career as a Christian pop singer, which may have made it more likely that she had heard Gray’s song.
Katy countered that she was “mostly always listening to … secular music anyway,” even during the early part of her career as a Christian singer.
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