(Update): Despite testifying that she wasn’t listening to any Christian music when she recorded the 2013 chart-topper, the pop star loses in court.
Update (July 29): She stole a beat, ‘cause she liked it? A federal jury sided against Katy Perry, ruling on Monday that her song “Dark Horse” copied from a Christian rap song, the Associated Press reported.
Flame (Marcus Gray) will be rewarded copyright damages due to the similarities between Perry’s hit and his 2009 song “Joyful Noise.”
He has yet to offer comment on the victory after a weeklong trial, which CT reported on below.
According to the AP:
Perry and the song’s co-authors, including her producer Dr. Luke, testified during the seven-day trial that none of them had heard the song or heard of Gray before the lawsuit, nor did they listen to Christian music.
Gray’s attorneys had only to demonstrate, however, that “Joyful Noise” 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.
Fellow Christian rapper Lecrae was featured on “Joyful Noise,” which came out in 2009, but dropped his name from the suit.
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Original post (July 25): The mainstream pop and Christian hip-hop (CHH) worlds collided again this month, as a five-year-old lawsuit claiming Katy Perry stole beats from a CHH song made it to court.
Last week, Perry took the stand before a civil jury in downtown Los Angeles and maintained that she was not familiar with Flame’s “Joyful Noise” (featuring Lecrae) when she created her 2013 magic-themed, pop-meets-trap hit “Dark Horse.” Despite her origins as a Christian musician—then performing as Katy Hudson—Perry said that she was “mostly …