In August 2013, Katy Perry released her album “Prism” which featured the single “Roar.” The song was a pop anthem intended to empower listeners to be brave and stick up for themselves. The issue was that this song had a striking resemblance to Sara Bareilles’ single, “Brave” which was released only months prior in April of 2013. This song featured the same message, the same “pop-synth” sound, and almost identical melodies. “And since your history of silence won’t do you any good, did you think it would?” – Sara Bareilles, Brave “I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath, scared to rock the boat and make a mess… I stood for nothing, so I fell for everything.” –Katy Perry, Roar While you could argue that this inspirational theme is a foundational …show more content…
However, even though Perry’s song wasn’t released until August of 2013, many online sources list the song’s recording date as March of 2013, one month before Bareilles’ song was released. Bareilles actually did speak out regarding the controversy over the two songs, saying “I was stoked. I was like, ‘Great. You guys want to go get mad about something and buy my music, that’s great.’” Another example of possible copyright infringement was a case that was actually brought to court in 2013 between Franck Le Calvez, a French author, and Walt Disney Studios and Pixar. Calvez claimed that Disney/Pixar’s 2003 movie Finding Nemo was based off of his character “Pierrot the Clownfish” which he had conceptualized in 1995 and published in November of 2002. The similarites between Calvez’s “Pierrot le Poisson Clown” and Disney/Pixar’s “Finding Nemo” consisted of the main character, who in both works was a clownfish who lives in a sea anemone and lost his mother to a predator. These plots do seem remarkably similar, and it does seem to me sufficient enough to constitute copyright