10/26/2015 UPDATE: Check out the deposition videos of Pharrell and Thicke. Apparently Pharrell can’t read music: http://mashable.com/2015/10/25/pharrell-deposition-video/
According to my go-to news source Mashable has confirmed that a federal jury found that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams lifted “Blurred Lines” from Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got to Give It Up”. $4 million in damages, plus $1.6 million in profits from Williams and $1.7 million from Thicke will go to Gaye’s children Nona, Frankie and Marvin III, pending a possible appeal.
This Thicke/Gaye story came to light back in August, 2013 when Thicke actually sued Marvin Gaye’s estate in order to protect his song from what was to come. You can read about that here.
And once again, here are those two songs:
Marvin Gaye – “Got to Give it Up” (1977)
Robin Thicke – “Blurred Lines” (2013)
See Also:
Sam Smith Settles Copyright With Tom Petty
Robin Thicke Lied About Writing “Blurred Lines”
Diet Coke vs. Pharrell Williams
Ed Sheeran “Sing” (co-written by Pharrell) vs. Yacht vs. The Rolling Stones
Heard about it on Seven News last night (at least it was last night where I am). I don’t like either song, but what interests me is the implications for copyright law. They have a similar groove and use of falsetto, but that’s about all.
I’ve been coming across a lot of headlines in the last week that are saying this case will send a “ripple through the music industry”. We’ll see what happens…
yeouch.. that had to hurt
honestly though…
its really not all that much alike..
there been plenty of other cases that lost and had more of a case than this..
heres a weird one..
comp f’d up again..
heres a classic one that made court but behold.. plaintiffs lose
seems when fogerty left ccr
he had to sign over all rights to everything he did in ccr to ccr..
and personally.. i think these are much closer than thicke/gaye
I know what you mean; the case was dismissed not because he wrote both of them, but because John Fogerty was able to prove the two songs were distinct compositions. How does that even leave a grey area which was resolved in the Blurred Lines trial? The case against John Fogerty was prompted when he stated The Old Man Down the Road had a Run Through the Jungle groove, maybe the difference was that he didn’t state that was what he was aiming for, only the result.
What bothered me was whether “Got To Give It Up Parts One And Two” was itself TRULY original.
But now the general public would never know, since Marvin Gaye himself was dead.
Even whilst Mr. Gaye had lived, Motown could very easily have targeted anyone claiming that “Got To Give It Up Parts One And Two” not only wasn’t truly his, but also had committed infringement and/or plagiarism, with too much preemptive litigation and too many in-advance ultimatums to allow lodging such claims to be worth whatever expenses had to be incurred for that purposes.
Can you think of a song in particular which Got To Give It Up could have borrowed from?
I don’t know. “Give it up” sounds more like Electric Avenue to me.