Surprise: Judge Throws Out Jury's Awful Copyright Infringement Decision Over Katy Perry Song
from the some-good-news? dept
Last summer, we wrote about yet another post-Blurred Lines decision, showing that any two random songs that sounded kinda a little similar, might be ripe for a court to find infringing. In this case, it was a Katy Perry song, Dark Horse, that was found to infringe on a little known artist named "Flame," who had a song called "Joyful Noise." As we noted at the time, the similarities between the song were simply basic and fundamental building blocks of music. As that article points out:
The issue isn't that "Joyful Noise" or "Dark Horse" are particularly original: both fuse generic elements of pop, trap and EDM—a style that's come to define the sound of the 2010s. Though in different keys and tempos, both songs feature a descending minor-key progression with evenly spaced B and C notes.
This four-note progression is as basic as the major-scale power-chord riffs in punk, and Perry's supporters argue that standard songwriting tropes like these should stay in the public domain. Indeed, well-known works like the Stranger Things theme song and LL Cool J's "Doin' It (Remix)" use descending minor-scale loops similar to those in "Dark Horse" and "Joyful Noise."
But, when a bunch of non-musicologist jurors say "hey, that sounds kinda similar," it seemed to be game over for Perry. Except... sanity may have finally prevailed. Months later, after Katy Perry asked the judge to overrule the jury as a matter of law (as opposed to a matter of fact, which is what the jury decides), the judge in the case has now thrown out the jury verdict, and properly noted that the similarities are not subject to copyright protection in the first place. Somewhat incredibly, it was the plaintiff's own expert witness who appeared to hand the judge all the evidence that was needed in comparing the two works:
The Court agrees that the uncontroverted evidence points to only one conclusion: that none of these individual elements are independently protectable. It is plaintiffs' burden to establish the protected elements of their allegedly infringed work... Dr. Decker did not provide testimony that each of the elements he identified are individually original. To the contrary, he testified that "[n]o one single . . . element" caused him to determine that the works contained protected features that were substantially similar.... Any single one of those [elements] would not have been enough," he conceded, "[i]t's the combination of them" that supported his conclusion....
Plaintiffs contend that, notwithstanding what Dr. Decker said, he did not expressly concede "that each individual element was unremarkable or commonplace."... The clear--indeed only--implication of Dr. Decker's testimony is that, if the two ostinatos are similar at all, it is reasonable only as a result of the arrangement of elements within those ostinatos, not any similarities between the individual elements themselves (which "would not have been enough"). Plaintiff's burden to present evidence that establishes protectability of each individual element is not met when their own expert provides testimony that assumes the opposite.
Further, Dr. Decker conceded, in substance, that several of the allegedly original individual elements of the plaintiffs' ostinato are not original: (1) with respect to the phrase lenght of eight notes, Dr. Decker testified that it is "characteristic for a phrase like this [ostinato] to last for eight beats," ... (2) with respect to the beginning of the pitch sequence of "3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2," Dr. Decker testified that a repeating scale degree of "3" that later resolves is a technique used for "building up tension that wants to be released" and that, when such tension is released in a song with "strong beat" like "Joyful Noise" it is "released to 2,"... (3) with respect to the way the "Joyful Noise" ostinato resolves from 3 to 2 to 1, Dr. Decker testified that "scale degrees have tendencies" in popular music such that, to make a pleasant consonant sound, "3 wants to go down to 2" and "2 desperately wants to go to 1" because "1 is our home note," which indicates that the way the ostinato resolves is not so much original as necessary... (4) with respect to the "Joyful Noise" ostinato's "square and even rhythm," Dr. Decker testified that this is a "relatively simple rhythmic choice" and agreed that "no composer [is] entitled to monopolize the rhytm of eight even quarter notes," ... (5) with respect to the ostinato's pingy synthesized timbre, Dr. Decker testified that it is essentially common since it would be "very difficult to monopolize," ... and (6) with respect to the deployment of these phrases as an ostinato (as opposed to some other musical device), Dr. Decker testified that ostinatos are commonly-used musical devices in "countless" musical compositions.
I think those paragraphs are slamming the lid shut on Dr. Decker's career as an expert witness on the plaintiff side of these cases... though they might open up opportunities on the defense side.
The judge also cites the very recent Stairway to Heaven ruling, saying that the 9th Circuit has now established that when we're talking about such obvious things, similarity is not enough -- the songs need to be "virtually identical."
For a plaintiff that seeks to apply this theory of protection to "works where there is a narrow range of available creative choices, the defendant's work would necessarily have to be 'virtually identical' to the plaintiff's work to be substantially similar." (Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin)
And here, the court says, the songs are not virtually identical, and once again the Plaintiff's own expert helped make that clear:
The evidence in this case does not support a conclusion that the relevant ostinatos in "Dark Horse" and "Joyful Noise" are virtually identical. There are a number of undisputed objective distinctions that, as a matter of law, negate liability. First, Dr. Decker testified that the pitches on the seventh and eighth beats of the "Joyful Noise" ostinato are different from the pitches on the corresponding beats of the "Dark Horse" ostinato: in "joyful Noise," the pitch sequence on these beats resolves up from B-A/F, while in "Dark Horse," the pitch sequence on these beats resolves down from A-E.... Plaintiffs characterize this testimony as signaling a similarity in how the songs resolve, and point to Dr. Decker's testimony that both ostinatos "share[e] similar musical strategies for how to end." ... But that conclusion is contrary to law: the question is whether the identified and allegedly protected concrete elements of the "Joyful Noise" ostinato are, in their combined form, objectively similar in articulable ways to corresponding concrete elements in the "Dark Horse" ostinato, not whether the ostinatos reflect common "strategies."... Moreover, the fact that the two 8-note ostinatos resolve using two different pitches despite a tendency to resolve within only a narrow range of pitches... (Dr. Decker conceded that "scale degrees have tendencies" to resolve in a particular manner), indicates an objective distinction rather than similarity. Second, the composition for the ostinato in "Joyful Noise" contains at least six instances of portamento (i.e. a slide between musical notes) not present in "Dark Horse."... Dr. Decker testified that he does not "hear" these differences "as signicant," ... but that opinion is legally irrelevant. Dr. Decker acknowledged that the presence of slides in the composition of "Joyful Noise" is "a difference" between the compositions.... And third, Dr. Decker acknowledged that the compositions for the ostinatos use different keys, tempos, harmonies, and rhythms.
I don't think this will stop these kinds of cases from being brought -- and this one may still be appealed. But, between the ruling in the Stairway to Heaven case, and now the judge ruling on this issue as a matter of law, it might bring some modicum of sanity back to the world of music copyright.
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Filed Under: blurred lines, copyright, copyrightable elements, dark horse, flame, joyful noise, katy perry
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Dr. Decker testified that a repeating scale degree of "3" that later resolves is a technique used for "building up tension that wants to be released" and that, when such tension is released in a song with "strong beat" like "Joyful Noise" it is "released to 2,"... (3) with respect to the way the "Joyful Noise" ostinato resolves from 3 to 2 to 1, Dr. Decker testified that "scale degrees have tendencies" in popular music such that, to make a pleasant consonant sound, "3 wants to go down to 2" and "2 desperately wants to go to 1" because "1 is our home note," which indicates that the way the ostinato resolves is not so much original as necessary...It's like he was running a music theory class for the jurors without using any of the music theory terms. Makes me wonder if "jury of your peers" should include a necessity that the jurors have a baseline of knowledge on a subject. That way the question of which expert was a more compelling teacher isn't what decides technical court cases.
BTW, if you want to drive a musician nuts, play a series of chords and leave it hanging on the last chord before things resolve. I've seen grown adults walk across an empty theater to play a resolved chord because someone purposefully left it hanging.
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Instead of fixing the laws they keep trying to twist into knots to interpret bad laws in such a way to make sure only "unimportant" people bear the burden
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"All the money" is "deserved" by important people, don't you know?
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Re: hanging chads, I mean chords
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0pnMvtgq-U
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If a baseline of knowledge was mandated, most if not all copyright-based cases wouldn't have a goddamn leg to stand on.
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Ditto with software patents
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But what about the structure, sequence and organization of the individual elements that are not independently protectable?
/s
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I'm not sure what you mean. Certainly Perry's ability to afford good counsel and an appeal helped the case reach this ruling, but precedent is precedent; a good legal precedent helps future cases, no matter who's involved.
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Most copyright cases don't have a leg to stand on. That's why most of the legal activity depends on getting people to pay a "settlement" rather than get the case before a court.
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Jusges throwing out JURY VERDICTS is a very slippery slope.
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The precedent is basically unchanged cases are evaluated individually at the point when it's too late to help anyone not Perry or Zeppelin.. If you are not already rich and you make something moderately successful it's guaranteed to be similar to some previous music in some way due to the nature of music and instruments and you can still easily be threatened or sued by all manner of "copyright holders" (spoiled kids of long dead musicians) claiming you infringed on them. If you have a great defense and enough money you could fight all the way to the end and might only lose out the money it takes to defend. More likely you "settled" in some way before the lawsuit even happened or were chilled into not releasing your song at all.
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In most cases, certainly ones involving jail time, I would agree with you.
However, this was a case based on technicalities and the jury made a pig ear of it because they were not technically knowledgable. Overruling a bad jury decision due to having a better understanding seems like a good thing here
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I don't have a problem with a judge reversing a jury verdict, if it's in favor of the defendant.
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Mandatory "Read the article" comment. The judge could disregard the jury verdict because it was clearly contrary to established law.
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So, you have a problem with checks and balances, and are willing to uphold verdicts by juries who were misinformed at the time of reaching their verdict?
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Luckily, the supreme court is most likely to slap down the CAFC for doing that.
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When a jury decides a case, it does so on the merits of the facts of the case and the law. Juries do not have to explain their verdicts and sometimes its the very laws they do not agree with. The Jury System is the LAST CHECK AND BALANCE on the government. Judges disregarding the jury's conclusions no matter how they are decided is a terrible assault against our freedom and power as a people.
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I mean, if your argument is that the precedent doesn't matter because poor people can't afford litigation, then that would mean no precedent matters, in any civil suit, ever.
You get that people who can afford to litigate can sue somebody for no reason whatsoever and tie them up in litigation for years, right? There's quite a lot of writing on that subject here on Techdirt, much of it from Mike's personal experience dealing with Shiva Ayyadurai and Charles Harder.
How exactly do you propose "fixing the laws" to mitigate that problem? In the example of Techdirt being sued for defamation, the answer is anti-SLAPP laws, but there are still plenty of other meritless lawsuits a sufficiently dedicated and well-heeled plaintiff could bring.
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"When a jury decides a case, it does so on the merits of the facts of the case and the law."
No, it does so based on the advice they receive, and as non-experts on the law if they receive faulty advice they may return a faulty verdict. Therefore, if legal experts identify they have returned a faulty verdict, they should be able to have it nullified by a legal expert.
Would you honestly prefer a system where a jury can happily return verdicts with no legal basis?
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That is what a jury trial is. Both sides had the whole court's attention throughout the trial. If by the time the case goes to the jury, they make their ruling on the facts they have. Its not the judge's job to over rule the jury. God God ya'll!
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If there has been a faulty trial, let the side who deems it faulty press for a retrial, but its no place for judges overruling juries!
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" Its not the judge's job to over rule the jury"
You can say that as many times as you want, it doesn't make it true.
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So, you don't want a system where decisions made by lower courts can be overruled if they are found to be faulty (as they are with non-jury verdicts). You want a system where jury trials are granted a magical status where the only way to change them is to go through the huge cost of doing the whole thing over, even when (as in this case) the entire basis of the trial is not legally sound to begin with.
It is fortunate that the system that exists in reality is not the one you wish exists.
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