Last year, the family of late Motown legend Marvin Gaye filed a lawsuit against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, claiming that their hit record “Blurred Lines” was too similar to Gaye’s 1977 classic “Got To Give It Up.”
Well, the verdict is out…
Thicke and Williams have been ordered to pay out more than $7 million to the Gaye estate, as compensation for the infringing song’s chart-topping success. It was revealed by the court that “Blurred Lines” raked in more than $16,675,000, with Williams and Thicke pocketing a whopping $5M+ each.
An attorney for Williams and Thicke has argued that a win for the Gaye estate represents a step backwards in regard to the music community’s ability to remain creative. However, the Gaye family contends that the track’s essence was stolen outright.
Nora Gaye, daughter of Marvin Gaye, expressed her relief following the verdict: “Right now, I feel free. Free from … Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s chains and what they tried to keep on us and the lies that were told.”
Proving “Blurred Lines” as infringement was especially hard for the prosecution, due to the fact that only sheet music could be filed for copyright prior to 1978, which made playing the full recording of “Got To Give It Up” for the jury forbidden. The jury was eventually swayed after hearing the protected elements of the song, without the song’s well-known percussion that the Gaye family’s legal representation referred to as “party noises.”
In addition to the suit, the Gaye family is looking to halt all future sales of “Blurred Lines,” according to Rolling Stone. The Gaye family attorney, Richard Busch, has released the following statement:
“We’ll be asking the court to enter an injunction prohibiting the further sale and distribution of ‘Blurred Lines’ unless and until we can reach an agreement with those guys on the other side about how future monies that are received will be shared. We’ll be doing that in about a week or so.”
Listen to both “Blurred Lines” and “Got To Give It Up” in comparison below: