Streaming helped plagiarism case

LOS ANGELES - A Christian rapper who won a nearly $3 million judgement over Katy Perry’s hit “Dark Horse’’ used his song’s millions of plays on YouTube and Spotify as evidence that Perry and her team may have heard it and then stole it.

The Perry trial that ended Thursday with a win for rapper Marcus Gray showed that streaming services and other technology may be proving challenging for copyright law.

It was once tough for minor artists to prove that major artists could’ve heard their work and copied from it, but cases like Perry’s may mean that streaming songs could make the legal hurdle easier to clear.

Attorney Michael Kelber, who specializes in intellectual property and technology, says it may be that “the floodgates are starting to open on these cases.’’