Robin Thicke, T.I and Pharrell Williams have launched a preemptive lawsuit against Marvin Gaye‘s family after they sought to prove Thicke’s mega hit Blurred Lines blurs the lines between copyright infringement and fair use.
The controllers of Marvin Gaye’s estate and Bridgeport Music, which includes ownership over music produced by Gaye and Funkadelic, suggested that Blurred Lines is too similar to Marvin Gaye’s Got to Give It Up and Funkadelic’s Sexy Ways for it to be merely a coincidence, but in their return lawsuit Thicke and co have cited that, whilst there may be some similarities, they are no more than “commonplace musical elements.”
Language in the suit read as follows:
Plaintiffs, who have the utmost respect for and admiration of Marvin Gaye, Funkadelic and their musical legacies, reluctantly file this action in the face of multiple adverse claims from alleged successors in interest to those artists. Defendants continue to insist that plaintiffs’ massively successful composition, ‘Blurred Lines,’ copies ‘their’ compositions…
“But there are no similarities between plaintiffs’ composition and those the claimants allege they own, other than commonplace musical elements. Plaintiffs created a hit and did it without copying anyone else’s composition.”
Blurred Lines has gone gangbusters the world over, hitting #1 in 14 different countries and developing a nasty habit of staying there for weeks on end. On top of that, the track has shifted more than 5 million copies and was exposed to a record breaking 219.8 million people during its first week on radio, so it’s safe to say there’s a lot on the line.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)