Katy Perry ‘Dark Horse’ copied Christian rap song, court finds

Discussion in 'Industry News' started by Fudsey Plange, Jul 30, 2019.

  1. starkid84

    starkid84 Producer

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    Sure.

    Please note that I don't personally have a strong opinion on the verdict, so I am neither 'apologist' or 'accusing' either party of anything, I'm just playing devils advocate and attempting to take a far more objective look than most people seem to be doing. Also I don't have all of the facts, but there is enough information to observe the following:

    1. The quarter notes, (as simplistic as people would like to make it seem) is the PRIMARY melody of the instrumental production. In the music industry whoever wrote that part of the composition might be entitled to up to 10-20% of the publishing rights of the composition due to its prevalence in the song. Claiming that this part of the composition is 'simple' does not make it immaterial.

    2. Any producer or musician worth his salt knows the easiest way to modify a composition is to transpose it up or down. This is a superficial change and DOES not change the harmonic structure of the music, all it changes is the tonal center. The second easiest way to modify a composition is to adjust the tempo. Both of these things I have done when creating instrumentals or songs using other songs as inspiration.

    3. The third easiest way to change a composition is to make small adjustments to a melody. The main melodies of both instrumentals are technically a few notes different, but for general listeners played at the same speed and same key would be considered practically the same.

    4. The drum cadence/rhythm section although basic, pretty much the same.


    5. The intros to the songs are practically identical, (arpeggiated synth line, and the into shout out " yall know what it is"). Even if the rest of the song is structurally different, and the above 3 elements are all purely coincidental, you now have to also explain how this 5th coincidence of the intro being the same also. The silly argument of "there are only 12 notes" doesn't apply to language, so given the odds, the lyrical choices could been hundreds of thousands different words or phrases. Once again it could be all a coincidence given how popular the phrases melodies are, but even these 5 things listed, one might question beyond a reasonable doubt if the latter song took from the first, just with some clever changes.

    Obviously I understand the implications are that this could become a slippery slope in a field that is dominated by taking inspiration and creating something new with it. Its literally the crux of almost all modern mainstream music to use a formulaic approach to create songs based on the structure or elements of other songs.

    I think given the above I think Katy Perry's team paying a token fee would have been smarter than to get ripped for a much larger portion of the publishing in court. Some might say, well thats not fair, what if it really was just a coincidence, they shouldn't have to pay for something they didn't do, thus go to trial and fight..... which makes sense in 'principal', but my lawyer always told me NEVER litigate on principal.

    Moral of the story, she probably should have settled.
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2019
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  2. jamzprod

    jamzprod Noisemaker

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    I think half the production world has made that beat at some point. It's absolutely ridiculous.
     
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  3. waverider

    waverider Rock Star

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    Imagine how funny it'll be when they find watermarks from cracked sample libraries in those songs :rofl:
     
  4. Dimentagon

    Dimentagon Platinum Record

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    Fuck the Christians and Fuck the parasitic lawyers but most of all fuck this lame ass Rap clap trap. Ironically this god bothering money hungry nobody will make more money from Katy Perry than he will in his own non career. Lets face it, both tracks are bollocks. I seriously dont get any of this tripe and i'm pretty sure i'm not missing anything. I't aint clever and it ant good. Is it a max martin track? certainly isn't a patch on Toxic...lol
    Or this
     
  5. Anthony Baruch

    Anthony Baruch Noisemaker

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    can we just agree that even though she lost.. this will barely put a dent in the money Katy Perry has along wiith the Double D's and Crazyy Horse she rode in on..
     
  6. KungPaoFist

    KungPaoFist Audiosexual

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    The concern is the precedent it sets for these cases.
     
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  7. electriclash

    electriclash Guest

    :drunks:
     
  8. ADiSH

    ADiSH Ultrasonic

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  9. Katy Perry & Co-Writers Owe $2.78M for 'Dark Horse' Lawsuit Loss

    https://www.billboard.com/biz/artic...ls-katy-perry-others-to-pay-278m-for-hit-they

    "It’s expensive to promote a Katy Perry hit, a music executive told a jury that will decide how much the pop superstar and other collaborators on her 2013 song “Dark Horse” will pay the creators of a Christian rap song.

    "Just how expensive? More than $13,000 for a wardrobe stylist. Over $3,000 for a hairdo. Nearly $2,000 for flashing cocktail ice cubes."

    https://www.billboard.com/biz/artic...s-a-glimpse-into-costs-of-making-a-katy-perry
     
  10. dirkdiddler

    dirkdiddler Noisemaker

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    I gotta say something man, earlier you said the beats shouldnt line up unless they were using the same Cymatics loops...dude...you don't think that is how music is written do you? People just use loops and throw them into songs and call it a day? There are so many things I want to tell you but are going to have to wait because next thing i want to address is how do you know that the youtube video you were talking about was using serato? the reason im asking is because you seem to make alot of presumptions (like the cymatics part which is...well....alot) about alot of things like "Not even the synth is played the same way" how do u know its not a sample from “Moments in Love” by Art of Noise? Where did you get your information from that says "no judge thought this would fly which is why the song went to the superbowl" and also tell me.... "Its a love song loosely borrowing terminology from a dark magic element for poetic effect"..... what are you talking about right there and also right..... "1st century Christians aside, if you want to interpret this as only meant for Christian on Christian disputes to make them appear better to outsiders and skip the main biblical theme of "turn the other cheek" fine" ......there......
     
  11. cooper

    cooper Member

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    Is someone going to argue that Adam Neely hates black music too?
     
  12. KungPaoFist

    KungPaoFist Audiosexual

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    Just my fun reference to Cymatics the company but also my interest in the science.
    I don't, I've seen companies that have though. How do you know how everyone uses loops?
    The YouTube vid was convincing when I didn't know what I was listening to. When I heard the originals I realized how utterly different they are.

    Because that wasn't any part of this case?
    The internet, when the case first began, look it up.

    I'm not going to get into the religious implications that were brought up in the case
     
  13. CMAudioz

    CMAudioz Member

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    There are a lot of similarities between the songs, and don't act like these top producers are not stealing others ideas, it happens all the time! They changed the sounds but a lot of the ideas are copied over. Sometimes they do it in the hope they get away with it, but certainly there's a thin line now as to what is copied, what is influenced and what is purely accidental!
     
  14. artwerkski

    artwerkski Audiosexual

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    ... the joys of copyright & greed.
    :)
     
  15. dirkdiddler

    dirkdiddler Noisemaker

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    Here ya go buddy....

     
  16. dirkdiddler

    dirkdiddler Noisemaker

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    Dude they didnt even get to listen to the songs back to back in court
     
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