Katy Perry, Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald, Capitol Records, and others are appealing a recent ruling that Perry’s “Dark Horse” plagiarizes a Christian rap single from 2009, Variety reports and Pitchfork can confirm. In the appeal over the lawsuit focusing on rapper Flame’s 2009 single “Joyful Noise,” Perry and the rest asked the court to overturn the ruling or grant a new trial.
The appeal cites insufficient evidence for the jury’s decision that the works are substantially similar (outside “a small number of indisputably commonplace elements”), that Perry and the co-creators of “Dark Horse” were aware of “Joyful Noise,” and that the beat from “Joyful Noise” is protected by copyright. The brief calls the jury verdict “legally unsupportable” and “a grave miscarriage of justice.”
Pitchfork has reached out to Marcus Gray’s lawyers, as well as lawyers for Katy Perry, Dr. Luke, and Capitol, et al., and representatives for Katy Perry.