Jury finds Pharrell, Thicke copied for 'Blurred Lines' song
Source: AP
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A jury awarded Marvin Gaye's children nearly $7.4 million Tuesday after determining singers Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied their father's music to create "Blurred Lines," the biggest hit song of 2013.
Gaye's daughter Nona Gaye wept as the verdict was read and was hugged by her attorney.
"Right now, I feel free," she said outside court. "Free from ... Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke's chains and what they tried to keep on us and the lies that were told."
...
Their lawyer, Richard Busch, branded Williams and Thicke liars who went beyond trying to emulate the sound of Gaye's late-1970s music and copied the R&B legend's hit "Got to Give It Up" outright.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/29a2f65bbc7f4327b93d8f6e08a955d1/jury-resumes-deliberating-blurred-lines-song-copying-case
I wonder what precedent this will set.
A current popular song is "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, whose beat sounds similar in style to "Living in America" by James Brown.
And a lot of hip hop music sampled (legally) past beats. For instance, "It Ain't Hard to Tell" by Nas sampled "Human Nature" by Michael Jackson in the beat. (You can look up these songs on YouTube yourself; I don't want to post a bunch of embeds and possibly crash some computers.) On the other hand, some albums failed to obtain proper clearance for samples, such as Notorious BIG's Ready to Die.
= new reply since forum marked as read
NOOOOOOOOO!!!! 
Like the parodies better than the actual Robin Thicke thing!
Response to alp227 (Original post)
I'm extremely wishy-washy when it comes to judging what is the same or not.
It's almost like the old theme... What is Art? (depends on who is there) 
I respect your thoughts on the subject.
This one even has the same opening with the sounds of a party, the same bass riffs, the same key, and the same vocal stylings.
That is more than just being inspired by a song. 
bout time. JMHO. How many other songs have been "used" for other singers hits. Happy that Marvin got his due. 
“I was high on vicodin and alcohol when I showed up at the studio. So my recollection is when we made the song, I thought I wanted — I — I wanted to be more involved than I actually was by the time, nine months later, it became a huge hit and I wanted credit. So I started kind of convincing myself that I was a little more part of it than I was and I — because I didn’t want him — I wanted some credit for this big hit. But the reality is, is that Pharrell had the beat and he wrote almost every single part of the song.”
Williams said he was “in the driver’s seat” for this song, but explained that sharing credit is the norm for the music industry. “You know, people are made to look like they have much more authorship in the situation than they actually do. So that’s where the embellishment comes in.” When asked whose words were used in the lyrics, Williams answered: “Mine.” Williams also said that it’s “Robin Thicke’s voice” that makes the song great: “Because it’s the white man singing soulfully and we, unfortunately, in this country don’t get enough — we don’t get to hear that as often, so we get excited by it when the mainstream gives that a shot.”
Thicke also admitted he lied to media outlets about the genesis of the song, like when he described the creative process to GQ: “Pharrell and I were in the studio and I told him that one of my favorite songs of all time was Marvin Gaye’s Got to Give It Up. I was like, ‘Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove.’ Then he started playing a little something and we literally wrote the song in about a half hour and recorded it.” As for why, exactly, he lied, Thicke says that he “had a drug and alcohol problem for the year” and “didn’t do a sober interview.”
If you want the real reason why Blurred Lines sold 7 million copies, check out the video. Hmmm -- since they played the video in court, maybe Thicke and Pharrell can appeal on the grounds that the jury found the video to be too sexist! Anyhoo, cue the Vonage theme!
rocktivity
