Judge orders Capitol Records, Katy Perry to pay $2.7M in damages to Christian rapper

LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A Christian rapper was awarded $2.7 million in damages today by a federal court jury that determined Katy Perry's hit "Dark Horse" included a musical passage lifted from the rapper's earlier song titled "Joyful Noise."

Capitol Records was ordered to pay the largest chunk -- $1.2 million -- of the damages, but Perry was ordered by the jury to pay $550,200 to Marcus Gray, the Christian rapper known as Flame. The balance of the damages must be paid by Perry's various producers and collaborators on the song.

The federal jury in downtown Los Angeles ruled that 22.5 percent of the total profits earned by "Dark Horse" can be attributed to the musical passage stolen from "Joyful Noise."