Katy Perry has to pay €495k over copyright lawsuit for 'Dark Horse'

On Monday, an L.A. jury found Katy Perry, her collaborators and her label guilty of copying a Christian rap song. They are now ordered to pay a total of €2.4 million to the rapper, of which the singer has to cover €495k. The rest will be paid by Perry's label Capitol Records.

The American pop star and her songwriters - Juicy J, Sarah Hudson, Dr. Luke, Max Martin and Cirkut - were accused of copying the beat of 'Joyful Noise', a song by Christian rapper Marcus Gray aka Flame, for her hit song 'Dark Horse'.

Perry's lawyers claimed that the beat was so simple that it doesn't constitute copyright. In the end, the jury decided in favour of Gray, arguing that the beat was original enough to be copyrighted and the song widely distributed so that one of the songwriters could have heard it.

The trial revealed that Capitol Records earned approximately €586.000 (including expenses) for the song. Katy Perry's profit from the song were about €2.2 million.