Madonna prevails in ‘Vogue’ copyright case

Pop star Madonna has prevailed in a copyright lawsuit centring on her 1990 song “Vogue” after a US appeals court rejected claims that a short snippet of the song infringed an earlier track.

In a ruling handed down on June 02, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the segment was small enough to be considered trivial.

The sample of music, which lasted an alleged 0.23 seconds, came from the song “Love Break”, released in the early 1980s.

The plaintiff, record label VMG Salsoul, owns the copyright to the track and claimed that Shep Pettibone, a producer on the track who went on to work with Madonna, sampled the snippet from “Love Break” and added it to “Vogue”.

“Defendants copied, at most, a quarter-note single horn hit and a full measure containing rests and a double horn hit,” Judge Susan Graber wrote, according to Reuters.