In a win for Madonna and the producer of the dance hit “Vogue,” a federal appeals court has created a circuit split over a key issue in copyright infringement claims involving sound recordings.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday upheld a summary judgment ruling that found that neither the Material Girl nor producer Shep Pettibone infringed on “Ooh I Love It (Love Break),” a largely instrumental piece from the 1980s. Purported copyright holder VMG Salsoul LLC alleged Pettibone had sampled a .23-second horn segment from “Love Break,” which he helped make, for use in two versions of “Vogue.” Even if that were true, the panel’s majority wrote, the copying was “de minimis,” noting that “a general audience would not recognize the brief snippet in Vogue as originating from Love Break.”
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