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30th Jul 2019

Katy Perry copied hit song from Christian rapper, court rules

Rudi Kinsella

The court will start work on deciding how much in damages Katy Perry must pay.

A US court has ruled that Katy Perry has copied her 2013 song ‘Dark Horse’ from a Christian rap song.

‘Dark Horse’ is one of Perry’s biggest hits, boasting a healthy 2.6 BILLION views on YouTube, but the court has decided that it is too similar to a song called ‘Joyful Noise’ by a Christian rap group called Flame.

‘Joyful Noise’ was released in 2011.

According to the BBC, during the trial, Katy’s team described the beat of both songs as “commonplace”, arguing that because of that, Flame could not claim copyright.

“They’re trying to own basic building blocks of music, the alphabet of music that should be available to everyone,” said Katy’s lawyer Christine Lepera during her closing arguments in court last week.

But lawyers representing Flame claimed that Katy and her team had “copied an important part”, and also cited the fact that Perry herself used to be a Christian artist.

The court will now start work on deciding how much in damages Katy Perry must pay.

What do you reckon? Do they sound similar?

Here’s ‘Dark Horse’ by Katy Perry:

Clip via Katy Perry

And here’s the Christian rap song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCcW-guAs_s

Clip via Radial by The Orchard

Certainly not identical, if you ask us, but you can kind of hear a slight similarity.

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