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EW MUSIC EXECUTIVES
flinched after a lawsuit
over “Blurred Lines”
resulted in a ruling of
copyright infringement — and more
than $7 million in damages — for
Marvin Gaye’s estate against Robin
Thicke and Pharrell Williams: It
was just one jury verdict against
songwriters who came off as
unsympathetic in
testimony. Then an
appeals court upheld the
verdict with damages
lowered to $5.3 million.
And on July 29, a jury
ruled that Katy Perry
and her co-writers had taken a six-
note sequence from the song “Joyful
Noise” and awarded $2.78 million to
the Christian rapper Flame.
Now publishers and songwriters
are beginning to worry that juries
might hear copyright infringement
in an increasing number of hits,
boosting the likelihood of future
lawsuits and the possibility that
more songwriters and publishers
could be forced to share royalties
BY STEVE KNOPPER
Copyright Chaos?
The infringement verdict against Katy Perry and her “Dark Horse”
co-writers could lead to a new wave of lawsuits against songwriters
with rights holders of older
compositions.
“This will cause more cases to be
brought,” predicts Kenneth Sidle,
a Los Angeles attorney who has
represented Dolly Parton and John
Fogerty in copyright-infringement
cases. “There’s a lot of songwriters
out there who think they’re being
ripped off and can perhaps talk a
lawyer into representing
them, get a good jury
and roll the dice.”
Perry and her five
co-writers, including
Juicy J, producer
Lukasz “Dr. Luke”
Gottwald and Max Martin, called
the verdict a “travesty of justice” in a
statement on Aug. 5. They repeated
their lawyers’ argument that they
hadn’t heard the Flame track
before they wrote “Dark Horse”
and that there was no “substantial
similarity” between the two songs.
Although Perry will have to pay
$550,000 in damages, her label,
Capitol Records, is responsible for
most of the rest.
Also concerning: The 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals called
for a new trial due to improper
jury advisement in a claim by the
estate of Spirit guitarist Randy
Wolfe against Led Zeppelin for
allegedly copying a riff from the
song “Taurus” for “Stairway to
Heaven.” (The original jury ruled
in Zeppelin’s favor.) Together,
the three cases — all of which
involved compositions rather than
recordings — could reshape both
legal precedents and industry
practices concerning what
constitutes copyright infringement.
Usually, accusations of
infringement don’t result in
litigation. But they often do result
in giving credit — and royalties
— to writers and publishers of
similar songs. Creators and
companies can buy “errors and
omissions” insurance that offers
some protection from infringement
claims, but it’s expensive: $20,
to $30,000 a year, according to
Lucas Keller, owner of management
company Milk & Honey, which
Sheeran’s
Touring Mark
pg.
Publishers
Quarterly
pg.
Tencent In For
10% Of UMG
pg.
T o p l i n e
$2.78M
Amount a jury determined
that Perry and her
“Dark Horse” co-writers
owed for infringement
MARKET WATCH
22.53B
1.1%
TOTAL ON-DEMAND STREAMS
WEEK OVER WEEK
Number of audio and video
on-demand streams for
the week ending Aug. 1.
12.78M
1.0%
ALBUM CONSUMPTION UNITS
WEEK OVER WEEK
Album sales plus track-equivalent
albums plus audio
streaming-equivalent albums
for the week ending Aug. 1.
641.0B
32.2%
TOTAL ON-DEMAND STREAMS
YEAR OVER YEAR TO DATE
Number of audio and video
streams for 2019 so far over
the same period in 2018.
A still from Perry’s
“Dark Horse” video.
AUGUST 10, 2 019 | WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 17