SALT LAKE CITY — A jury ruled Monday that Katy Perry’s 2013 pop hit “Dark Horse” improperly copied a 2009 Christian rap song, The New York Times reports.
What happened: Five years ago, Marcus Gray and two co-writers sued Perry and accused her of stealing “Dark Horse” from their own song, “Joyful Noise.” Gray reportedly released the song under the stage name "Flame." A nine-member federal jury ruled on the case on Monday and found that Perry's song copied elements of Gray's song.
Next steps: The jury will now decide how much the plaintiffs will receive for the copyright infringement.
Arguments: Gray’s attorneys said that the “Dark Horse” beat and instrumentals were eerily similar to “Joyful Noise.” That said, Perry’s attorney’s argued that the beats and instrumentals in question were the same ones used by plenty of other artists.
- “They’re trying to own basic building blocks of music, the alphabet of music that should be available to everyone,” Perry’s lawyer Christine Lepera said, according to Fox News.
- Perry and her song’s co-writers argued that they had never heard of Gray or “Joyful Noise,” nor did they listen to Christian music.
- In response, Gray’s attorneys argued that the song “had wide dissemination and could have been heard by Perry and her co-authors, and provide as evidence that it had millions of plays on YouTube and Spotify, and that the album it’s included on was nominated for a Grammy,” according to Fox News.
- According to The New York Times, Gray’s attorneys also argued that his reputation as a Christian artist may have been harmed by the “anti-Christian witchcraft, paganism, black magic, and Illuminati imagery evoked by ‘Dark Horse,’ especially in the music video version.”
Flashback: “Dark Horse” has been embroiled in controversy since it was first released. As I wrote for the Deseret News back in 2014, the “Dark Horse” music video fell under fire for allegedly containing anti-Muslim connotations. An Islamic symbol was reportedly cut from production after the original video showed the symbol being burned.
- There was a Change.org petition that called the burning of the symbol offensive.
- “At 01:15 into the video Dark Horse; a man is shown being burned, whilst wearing a pendant (also burned) forming the word ‘Allah’, which is the arabic word for God,” the petition reads. “Such goes to show, that blasphemy is clearly conveyed in the video, since Katy Perry (who appears to be representing an opposition of God) engulfs the believer and the word God in flames.”