Producers testify they didn’t help Katy Perry plagiarize

LOS ANGELES -- A federal jury heard testimony Tuesday from three well-known music producers, describing their creative processes in a case trying to determine whether pop star Katy Perry and her team stole aspects of her song "Dark Horse" from a song released by a Christian rapper.

Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald, a music producer known popularly as Dr. Luke, testified that while some aspects of the creative process were a grind, he considered himself and his colleagues principled artists, adding that he was hurt by the accusation that he, or those close to him, would steal original work.

"Some days I feel like I'm doing great work. Some days I feel like I'm terrible. That's just part of the creative process," Gottwald testified under questioning from plaintiff's attorney Lauren Cohen of St. Louis-based Capes, Sokol, Goodman & Sarachan PC. Cohen asked Gottwald whether the pressure to be a hitmaker attached to roughly 30 top 10 singles would ever lead him to rip off the work of another artist. He said he would never do that.

Gottwald said he was often inspired by other artists in the context of a studio writing room or when working collaboratively on a project but denied having ever come into contact with the work of plaintiff Marcus Gray, or any Christian rap, prior to the lawsuit.

"People's faith is personal and pop music appeals to everybody," Gottwald testified, explaining that he mostly only listened to popular music as inspiration for his work.

Songwriter and producer Carl Martin Sandberg, known as Max Martin, led the day's testimony while videoconferencing into U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder's courtroom from Kenya.

Sandberg's testimony centered on explaining the intricacies that go into making a song and how these details made it unlikely that he plagiarized the beat.

Katy Perry / New York Times News Service

"You're in charge of the sonic or technical part of the recording," Sandberg said. He described his producer role as "deciding who plays what and when" as well as maintaining "certain obligations towards the finances and delivering the song on time."

Defense attorney Jeffrey Movit, a partner at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP, asked whether Sandberg ever had any interaction with Gray, known as FLAME, prior to the suit. He said he had not.

While he did have a Myspace account between the years of 2008-2013, when the plaintiff's song "Joyful Noise" was viewable on that site, Sandberg said he only used it to secure the Max Martin property and screen name from anybody who might seek to use it.

Plaintiff's attorney Eric F. Kayira, a Missouri-based lawyer, asked the plaintiff whether he could "compose music electronically."

Sandberg replied, "If I have melody I can record it onto the program."

Henry Russell Walter, a Canadian producer known as Cirkut, described his process when creating the beat for "Dark Horse."

Walter's testimony focused on his personal relationship to the piece of music from "Dark Horse," which Gray alleges was plagiarized. Marcus Gray v. Katy Perry, 15-CV05642 (C.D. Cal., filed July 1, 2014).

He said inspiration struck him while he was waiting for another artist to show up to a Santa Barbara recording studio on March 8, 2013.

He played the original 3-2-1-5 section that opens the song on a keyboard and decided it needed "room to breath," so he slowed it down and wrote an accompanying 3-3-3-3-2-2-2-5 stretch that was widely discussed in prior testimony. Gottwald and others then added some flourishes, Walter concluded.

Walter similarly testified he had no knowledge of FLAME's work prior to the case and did not listen to Christian rap in general.