Katy Perry and Team to Pay $2.78 Million For Allegedly Copying Parts of This Song, Declares Jury In This Shocking Judgement!

BuzzOctober 9, 2019

Well, life is certainly not easy when you are a superstar because there is a lot of attention to everything that you do.

But for most celebrities, keeping their private life hidden from the public eye is the biggest struggle, because everyone has a camera nowadays and it’s very easy to take a picture or make a video of whatever they do, either out in public or, in some cases, even in the comfort of their own home. However, Katy Perry has an added struggle in her life: a lawsuit.

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Katy Perry is reportedly worth around $330 million right now, so having a lawsuit of this sort is probably not bothering her too much.

While musicians are under constant pressure to come up with music that is original, since there are a lot of musicians making a lot of music, it is becoming increasingly likely that your original music may resemble one that has already been made in the past. And if the music or the lyrics in your song do share such a resemblance, then you may have a problem on your hands in the form of a lawsuit.

The Allegations

Apparently, Katy Perry’s song called Dark Horse was copied from a song called Joyful Noise released earlier by a rapper called Marcus Gray back in 2009, at least according to a jury that has demanded Perry’s team, including her record label, to pay up over $2.78 million to Gray for having used a part of his song.

This is not nearly as much as Gray had demanded as compensation, which was a figure close to $20 million.

It was argued by Gray that since Perry and company had made over $41 million with the song and it used around 45% of his music, both of which have been questioned by Perry’s team, he should be receiving a compensation worth $20 million.

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Dark Horse is an iconic song and perhaps the biggest hit of the entire album.

Of course, Perry and her team have completely denied the allegations, although have acknowledged that there is some resemblance in the music which plays in Dark Horse during a small portion of the song. However, having a resemblance in the music is enough to give birth to a dispute regardless of whether it had been done intentionally or not.

A Trend In Music

For example, back in 2013, when the song Blurred Lines had been released by Robin Thicke in collaboration with singer Pharrell Williams, it was alleged that the song had copied from another one called Got To Give It Up released by Marvin Gaye.

The court decision was made in favor of Gaye’s family, whereby his children were ordered to receive $7.4 million from Williams and Thicke, an award that was subsequently reduced to $5 million after an appeal.

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Other artists have also had to face plagiarism allegations for their songs, like Sam Smith

Sam Smith’s song called Stay With Me had also come under similar scrutiny after it was alleged that it shared a resemblance with another song called I Won’t Back Down released in 1989 by Tom Petty.

In this case, it was even acknowledged by the publishers of Petty themselves that the resemblance could have been due to coincidence, yet an undisclosed dollar sum was paid and also Petty as well as Jeff Lynne had to be included as co-writers on the song.