IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—D. Or.: Jury rejects infringement claim in longstanding pastoral music dispute, (Mar 25, 2026)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The jurors were given a “crash court” in musicology during the trial.

A songwriter and her Christian music publisher did not infringe upon the copyright to a musical composition written in 1980 by another songwriter who also specializes in pastoral worship themes, a federal jury in Portland, Oregon has held. The jury, whose decision caps—at least for now—a long-running battle between the two musicians, rendered its decision after receiving what one news report described as “crash course” in musicology as well as a livestreamed performance of the songs at the center of the dispute (Ambrosetti v. Oregon Catholic Press, No. 3:21-cv-00211-IM (D. Or. Mar. 20, 2026)).

The lawsuit arises out of a longstanding dispute between two powerhouses of the Christian music industry. On the one side is Vincent Ambrosetti, a prolific songwriter who has composed more than 400 works of sacred music including the 1980 song “Emmanuel” (on YouTube here, Spotify here). On the other side is Oregon Catholic Press, or OCP, a Christian music publishing group run by Owen Alstott. In 1993, OCP published “Christ Be Our Light” (on YouTube here, Spotify here), a song composed by British musician (and Alstott’s wife) Bernadette Farrell.

Proceedings below. Ambrosetti sued Farrell and OCP in the Northern District of Indiana for copyright infringement in the 2020. (The case was originally dismissed for lack of proper registration but Ambrosetti later filed an amended complaint after remedying the registration deficiency; the case was later transferred to the District of Oregon.) Farrell and OCP challenged the copyright infringement claim on the grounds that Farrell never had access to “Emmanuel” before composing “Christ Be Our Light” and, even if she did, the two songs were not substantially similar.

The district eventually granted summary judgment against Ambrosetti in 2024. The court, in largely adopting the report and recommendations of a magistrate judge, found that Ambrosetti had not introduced sufficient evidence to show a “reasonable possibility” that Farrell had access to Ambrosetti’s song prior to composing her own. Moreover, while a reasonably jury could find that the two songs were substantially similar, the court found, no reasonable jury could find that the songs were strikingly similar—the burden Ambrosetti would have to surpass in order to make out an infringement claim in the in the absence of a showing of access.

Proceedings on appeal. The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded for trial in 2025. The court of appeals found that the district court erred both on the question of access as well as the question of striking similarity.

As far as access, the court of appeals found, Ambrosetti adequately showed a reasonable possibility that he could prove a “chain of events” between his work and Farrell’s access to that work. To be sure, the court noted, Ambrosetti’s best evidence—correspondence from OCP’s Alstott explicitly acknowledging that Ambrosetti sent him a copy of “Emmanuel”—was properly excluded below because Ambrosetti disclosed those letters too late. But Ambrosetti put forward a plausible claim even without that evidence, the court of appeals found, because he showed that he performed “Emmanuel” at two pastoral music conventions that were attended, respectively, by Alstott and Farrell. Moreover, the court noted of appeals noted, these were “not large events”—1,000 attendees at one, and 4,000 to 5,000 attendees at another. “Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Ambrosetti,” the court of appeals found, these facts were sufficient to demonstrate “a reasonable possibility that Farrell could have accessed ‘Emmanuel’ before composing ‘Christ.’”

Ambrosetti also presented evidence of Farrell’s access by pointing to the widespread distribution and publication of “Emmanuel” prior to 1993. The magistrate judge, in reasoning adopted by the district court, rejected this theory primarily because Ambrosetti had failed to establish the “amount of sales” that he had generated and so failed to show that “Emmanuel” had enjoyed sufficiently substantial commercial success before 1993. But there was “no bright-line rule,” the court of appeals emphasized, “where some number of units distributed always equals—or does not equal—access.” Here, the court of appeals noted, Ambrosetti, Alstott, and Farrell were all members of the same liturgical music community during the relevant period, as demonstrated by their attendance at the same “niche” (in the court’s words) conventions. “Ambrosetti does not need to show widespread dissemination among musicians generally, but only among members of this small scene,” the court emphasized. A reasonable jury could find that he met this threshold.

Finally, the court of appeals also found that a reasonable jury could conclude that the two works were “strikingly” similar—thus allowing him to prevail even without direct evidence of access. Here the court examined carefully the report prepared by Ambrosetti’s musicologist (and longtime music litigation expert) Lawrence Farrell that identified a list of 23 different similarities between the two works. “While each item in Dr. Ferrara’s list of twenty-three similarities might not be protectable,” the court noted, “together, their unique combination is. We cannot separate out each piece of glass within the kaleidoscope of an overall work: rather, we must view the work as the sum of all the relevant elements together.” And while certain elements of the two songs were indeed based on “commonplace building blocks of liturgical music,” the court noted, these similarities formed “only a minor part of the overlap between the works.”

Trial. Although Ambrosetti managed to bring his infringement case to trial, the jury ultimately rejected the claim. Because the verdict form contained only a pair of single yes/no questions for each defendant on whether Ambrosetti had proven infringement, it is not possible to tell whether the jury reach the claim of striking similarity or whether it rejected the claim on the basis of lack of access or lack of substantial similarity (or both). Press coverage of the trial, however, made clear that the similarity or lack of similarity between the two works was a core issue in the testimony at trial, with one report noting that the jury received “a crash course in music reading along with a livestreamed performance of the songs at the center of the dispute and another report noting that the eight members of the jury were given a lesson on “how to read music, how to distinguish between a quarter note and a half note and how many beats each measure holds.”

The Case is No. 3:21-cv-00211-IM.

Judge: Immergut, K.

Attorneys: Donald J. Schmid (Law Offices of Donald J. Schmid) for Vincent A. Ambrosetti. Michael C. Willes (Willes Law, PC) for Oregon Catholic Press.

Cases: Copyright OregonNews