Katy Perry loses to St. Louis entertainment lawyer

A St. Louis-based entertainment lawyer persuaded a Los Angeles jury last week that part of Katy Perry‘s 2013 hit “Dark Horse” was lifted from a Missouri-based Christian rap artist, earning the plaintiffs $2.78 million in damages.

Michael Kahn of Capes Sokol was lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the high-profile copyright-infringement suit, filed in Missouri in 2014 but later transferred to the U.S District Court for the Central District of California.

Marcus Gray, who goes by the stage name Flame, alleged that his 2008 song “Joyful Noise” contained a musical beat written by fellow St. Louisan Chike Ojukwu. Gray, Ojukwu and another plaintiff, Emanuel Lambert, alleged that Perry, her record label and other defendants used the beat in “Dark Horse” without permission.

A federal jury on July 30 found that the two songs were “objectively substantially similar in copyrightable protectable expression,” and that the defendants likely heard the song prior to writing “Dark Horse.”

“We filed this lawsuit five years ago on behalf of our clients, who sought justice for the unauthorized taking of their valuable creation,” Kahn said in a written statement. “It was truly a David versus Goliath struggle. While the path has been long and arduous, our clients are pleased to have finally received the justice they sought from a jury of their peers.”

The separate damages phase wrapped up on Aug. 1. Perry and her co-defendants have vowed to appeal.

Kahn is part of Capes Sokol’s entertainment and media practice group, which focuses on smaller creative clients in the St. Louis area. A 1979 graduate of Harvard Law, Kahn specializes in copyright, trademark, First Amendment and media law.

The case is Marcus Gray et al. v. Katy Perry et al., 2:15-cv-05642.