The legal news wires are “rocking” with headlines in music copyright infringement cases. The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, found for Led Zeppelin in the “Stairway to Heaven” litigation and euthanized the “inverse ratio rule.” In a connected world of nearly universal access to copyrighted works, a plaintiff must show real plagiarism, not merely plausible similarities.
Soon thereafter Judge Snyder threw out the jury’s verdict that Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” copied a bass ostinato from Christian rapper Flame’s “Joyful Noise.”
For copyright lawyers this news creates the sort of excitement that NFL fans experience over a tie in the last two minutes of the Super Bowl. read more