On behalf of the defendants Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, testimony by forensic musicologist Lawrence Ferrara, in tandem with that of acoustic musicologist Professor Paul Geluso, paved the way to a "motion for summary judgement" being granted by US District Court Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans.
Professors Ferrara and Geluso’s analyses were heavily cited in Judge Feldman’s decision and helped to secure a dismissal of the litigation brought by the plaintiff, Paul Batiste. Dr. Ferrara’s rebuttal of the plaintiff's musicological report was frequently quoted in the federal court decision, such as Ferrara's finding that “fragmentary similarities between excerpts of the compositions at issue only appear after deeply flawed manipulations and misrepresentations in the transcriptions [by Plaintiff's expert].” Relatedly, Geluso provided testimony grounded in his technological expertise, and focused on spectrogram comparisons.
See a story in Digital Music News about the case.