Katy Perry: Plagiarism case against me is serious threat to musicians

A court previously ruled her hit Dark House ripped off a rap track 
6689919 katy perry gets slammed for dolly parton tribute   61st Grammy Awards - Show - Los Angeles, California, U.S.
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Katy Perry is challenging a £2.2 million ($2.8 million) court ruling that her 2013 hit Dark Horse ripped off a Christian rap track, saying the verdict could do “serious harm” to the music industry.

The singer, 34, has lodged an appeal, arguing that she and her team are the victims of a “grave miscarriage of justice”.

Perry insisted the chart-topping song was an original, dreamt up in a four-hour Santa Barbara music studio session, and denied claims from rappers Flame and D.A. Truth and beats creator Chike Ojukwu that parts were copied from their 2009 gospel song Joyful Noise.

Mike Conn, representing the rappers, told the court hearing: “The defendants took this part of the song without permission.”

Row: Katy Perry in her song "Dark Horse" 
Capitol Records

He also claimed the damage was made worse by the video for Dark Horse, which included occult themes that the rappers claimed damaged their standing in Christian music.

In July, a jury in Los Angeles found Dark Horse was a result of plagiarism, and Perry and her collaborators were ordered to pay $2.8 million in damages.

In documents filed to a court in California, Perry and her co-accused have asked for the decision to be overturned or for a new trial to be ordered, arguing the jury delivered “legally unsupportable” findings.

In July, a jury in Los Angeles found Dark Horse was a result of plagiarism (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
Amy Harris/Invision/AP

They said: “The erroneous verdicts in this case and the precedent established ... present serious harm to music creators and to the music industry as a whole.”

The appeal relies in part on how widely known Joyful Noise was. Perry’s legal team argued there was no evidence presented that it sold a single copy.

“No reasonable factfinder could have concluded that Joyful Noise was so well known that it could be reasonably inferred that the defendants heard it, particularly in this digital age of content overload, with billions of videos and songs available to users with trillions of streams,” the lawyers claimed.

Perry was found liable for damages alongside Capitol Records, Warner Bros. Music Corporation, Kobalt Publishing and Kasz Money, Dr Luke, Max Martin, Cirkut, Sarah Hudson and rapper Juicy J.

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