You Raise Me Up

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Josh Groban’s 2003 song “You Raise Me Up” didn’t infringe the copyright to a little-known 1977 song, ruling that both songs were actually derived from the century-old folk song “Danny Boy.” Ending a three-year legal battle over Groban’s first big hit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a lower judge’s decision last year: That any similarities between the two songs originated in the famous folk ballad, for which any copyright has long since expired. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in 2018 by a company called Johannsongs-Publishing Ltd., which owns the rights to a 1977 song entitled “Söknuður.” The case claimed that “You Raise Me Up,” written by Irish-Norwegian band Secret Garden but popularized by Groban’s version, was “97% si...