George Harrison - Dark Horse - Lyrics
Posted on 08/02/2019 7:11:05 PM PDT by hapnHal
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Katy Perry, her collaborators and her record label must pay more than $2.78 million because the pop star’s 2013 hit “Dark Horse” copied a 2009 Christian rap song, a federal jury decided Thursday.
It was an underdog victory for rapper Marcus Gray, a relatively obscure artist once known as Flame, whose 5-year-old lawsuit survived constant court challenges and a trial against top-flight attorneys for Perry and the five other music-industry heavyweights who wrote her song.
The amount fell well short of the nearly $20 million sought by attorneys for Gray and the two co-writers of “Joyful Noise” — Emanuel Lambert and Chike Ojukwu — but they said they were pleased.
“We weren’t here seeking to punish anyone,” said Gray’s attorney, Michael A. Kahn. “Our clients came here seeking justice, and they feel they received justice from a jury of their peers.”
Perry herself was hit for just over $550,000, with Capitol Records responsible for the biggest part of the award — $1.2 million. Defense attorneys had argued for an overall award of about $360,000.
Perry’s attorney, Christine Lepera, said they plan to vigorously fight the decision.
“The writers of Dark Horse consider this a travesty of justice,” Lepera said.
“Dark Horse,” which combines elements of pop, hip-hop and trap styles, was a mega-hit for the Santa Barbara, California-born singer, with its call-and-response chorus of “Are you ready for (ready for), a perfect storm (perfect storm)?”
It spent four weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in early 2014, and Perry would later perform it at the Super Bowl.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Peanuts for this pea brain.
They stole the loop too bad so sad
Took 6 people to swipe er write her hit
“Must pay”? Gee, wonder how long that’ll spend in the court system.
Katy Perry’s Net Worth $330 Million, Age 34,
Married
From the little I’ve read there was no real evidence that a theft was committed. Apparently the judgement was based solely on the similarities of Perry’s work with the plaintiff’s. If so, this could be a wrongful judgement based upon an amazing coincidence, such as the rapper whose 2001 calendar showed a plane going into the twin towers, or the author who ten years before the Titanic sunk wrote of the large passenger ship Titan hitting an iceberg and sinking.
Al Kooper would occasionally show up on Boston radio shows when he taught at Berklee.
He explained the songwriting royalty split to a caller, and the host, Howie Carr iirc, commented on how overpaid the wordsmiths were for some stupid song composed by Kooper.
Kooper commented, "And it took two of them to come up with those lyrics."
OTOH, I saw some documentary on The Go-Go's and the real musician in the group that wrote the early hits said the rest of the group saw how much money she was raking in, and decided that the group was going to be credited with "writing" any future Go-Go's songs from any of the members.
“It spent four weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in early 2014, and Perry would later perform it at the Super Bowl.”
And this matters to who? Children 15 and younger?
*SNORT*
Why would it take more than that? If Katy Perry says she didn't steal it, and someone who created something they thought she did steal it...what other way to resolve it than to have a jury of people listen to both versions and decide?
I have never listened to any of her music, and have never heard anything from the other artist, but I'll bet I could listen to it and decide. A jury apparently did.
Honestly, what would be the alternative? Just a shrug of the shoulders and tell the complaining artist "Sorry."
As for coincidence, sure. It is possible.
Granted, there have been people who were worried that all the music that could ever be created had already been written, because there are only so many notes available.
Of course, that was back in the mid-18th century...
I disagree with this decision. The riff used (similar between songs, but not the same) is widely circulated in hip-hop/rap crossover music, including dubstep. I also believe that Perry doesn’t listen to Christian music and had no clue who they are. I listen to some Christian music, and I had no clue who they were until this came up. I listened to the songs side-by-side, and the disputed portion is not the same.
I think this was a genuine mistake.
For instance: I designed characters and wrote stories which were copied in a television show about four years later, almost exactly, after sharing my writings online. Am I entitled to compensation? Do I have to prove that my writing was the source of inspiration, or is it judged based on the similarities? How are we certain that two separate people didn’t come up with the same idea around the same time independently of one another?
Thus the dilemma.
I had the George Harrison “Dark Horse” 8-Track. Actually, I had a bootleg of it in 1975. Pretty uneven stuff, too much Indian influence.
Poor George also lost big when a jury decided that his “My Sweet Lord” was a rip-off of the Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine”.
“I disagree with this decision. The riff used (similar between songs, but not the same) is widely circulated in hip-hop/rap crossover music, including dubstep.”
My son is a producer/writer/engineer in several genres, including those you mentioned, and he is on the same page as you. He played me the riff in question, and I agree as well - I wouldn’t have voted for a plagiarism verdict were I on the jury.
Rick Beato destroys this ridiculous lawsuit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4MuhPqfIk4&list=RDW4MuhPqfIk4&index=1
I generally agree, but according to some sources, Katy Perry does have a background in “Christian” music (she is a P.K. as I recall) and reasonably may have been exposed to the other music; Taylor Swift similarly has a past association with Country.
Yeah, his loss of that lawsuit made it doubly apropos.
They were instructed to write new material to fill their albums. They were quite prolific when you consider how short lived their band was. Today they would be good to get to release 2 albums in 8 years
His pedantic argument is akin to Vanilla Ice saying they added an extra beat to the Under Pressure riff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5V0Fx50ViI
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