Katy Perry Appeals $2.8 Million ‘Dark Horse’ Copyright Verdict

Katy Perry and her collaborators on the 2013 hit “Dark Horse” are fighting a jury’s decision to make them pay $2.78 million for cribbing a Christian rapper’s beat, in an appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

The pop star and her co-defendants filed the appeal Oct. 15, four days after giving notice to a district court. They claim that no evidence supported the jury’s findings that they accessed and copied aspects of “Joyful Noise” by Marcus Gray, who’s also known as Flame.

Perry may have an uphill fight in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, because courts are ...