Not so fast! The court case between Katy Perry and FLAME that dragged on for nearly five years may be continuing on. Back in August FLAME was claimed the victor and awarded $2.78 million from Perry and her collaborators after a jury found her hit “Dark Horse” plagiarized his song “Joyful Noise” featuring Lecrae. Now, the defendants are filing an appeal on the judgment.
According to Vanity Fair, this is what parts of the appeal state:
“the legally unsupportable jury verdicts in this music copyright infringement case that are widely recognized within the music industry — and beyond — as a grave miscarriage of justice. …The erroneous verdicts in this case and the precedent established thereby present serious harm to music creators and to the music industry as a whole.”
“Plaintiffs did not offer proof of one single digital or brick-and-mortar sale of ‘Joyful Noise’ or (the album) ‘Our World Redeemed‘ and admitted that they have no such evidence.”
“No reasonable factfinder could have concluded that ‘Joyful Noise’ was so well-known that it could be reasonably inferred that 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 few million views of ‘Joyful Noise’ on the Internet presented by Plaintiffs, over a period of five years, equals an undisputed ‘drop in the bucket’ in modern day view count statistics — and can hardly constitute widespread dissemination… Plaintiffs adduced no evidence of any sales and no documentary evidence of any radio or television play, or of actual performances of ‘Joyful Noise.’ … Plaintiffs had no proof that any of the ‘Dark Horse’ writers searched for Christian rap on YouTube or Myspace, as was Plaintiffs’ burden.”
It initially took seven days for the jury to deliberate and come to their decision. FLAME and his team argued that the song was popular enough for Perry and company to have heard it despite their denial. They also had a musicologist breakdown the beat and explain the similarities. Perry’s defense team brought in their own expert who refuted these claims. Another tactic of the plaintiff was using Perry’s former background as a Christian singer as well as having pastors for parents as a reason she would have heard the song.
Read more about the entire case here.
