Blurred Lines plagiarism verdict

opentune

Platinum Member
What do people think of the verdict, that Blurred Lines copied Marvin Gaye's Got to Give it Up? The court surely think so, to the tune of 7.5 million.

They compared chords, charts. I have to say, bass line and groove are parts that made it pretty convincing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhr3XL78mk8
This controversy kind of gets you into an issue - who owns a groove?
 
The youth of today have taken it upon themselves to recycle and rehash older intellectual property under the maxim "it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission". These guys played the numbers and lost. I'm happy that the Gaye family got a settlement for their IP.

But they (Pharrell and Thicke) still get to walk away with a couple of mil each...
 
The youth of today have taken it upon themselves to recycle and rehash older intellectual property under the maxim "it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission".

Let's not limit to the youth of today.

The interesting about this new case is that it's the first time an artist sued the original artist's estate prior to being sued for infringement.

Is this case on PACER yet? It's got to be a riot to read.
 
Let's not limit to the youth of today.

The interesting about this new case is that it's the first time an artist sued the original artist's estate prior to being sued for infringement.

Is this case on PACER yet? It's got to be a riot to read.

Well nowadays they just lift the entire section of music verbatim and stick it into a "beat".
 
The big news here is the size of the settlement. I guess there's still money in writing hit songs.
 
The youth of today have taken it upon themselves to recycle and rehash older intellectual property under the maxim "it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission". These guys played the numbers and lost. I'm happy that the Gaye family got a settlement for their IP.

But they (Pharrell and Thicke) still get to walk away with a couple of mil each...


This kind of thing's been going on forever, although this must be one of the most brazen examples.
 
The youth of today have taken it upon themselves to recycle and rehash older intellectual property under the maxim "it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission". These guys played the numbers and lost. I'm happy that the Gaye family got a settlement for their IP.

But they (Pharrell and Thicke) still get to walk away with a couple of mil each...

I have mixed feeling on IP mainly because of what its turned into via Mega Corporations but in this case they got caught doing an end run around "sampling" and it was clear they knew of some risk when they attempted to preempt the Gaye Estate from bringing the suit in the first place.

This is pretty true of many businesses today. Given the types of exposure available that comes with 'going viral' its nothing more than a new cost of doing business. The Bestie Boys case was another example of this.

Its going to be interesting to see the effects of this because its not a "Sampling" case that people are used dismissing out of hand.
 
The story I read this morning mentioned 7.3 million and yet Pharrel was paying 1.0 something, and Thicke was 1.0 something and the third guy got off. Where is the other 5 mill coming from.?
 
I had no idea each of Thicke and Williams made 7 mil each of the song.
I think the classier thing would have been to settle out of court, kind of what Sam Smith did with Petty and Lynne. Sam Smith and lawyers said right away ' hey you're right, sorry, you get credits to the song'.
How producers let this stuff out the door I have no idea.
 
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