A jury verdict was announced yesterday in a lawsuit claiming that Robin Thicke and Pharrell’s 2013 hit, “Blurred Lines”, infringed on the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s #1 1977 song, “Got to Give It Up.” (Comparison video below.) The jury ruled that “Blurred Lines” did violate Gaye’s copyright and awarded the late musician’s family $7.3 million. There was a second song at issue, Thicke’s 2011’s “Love After War.” The jury found that “Love After War” was not an infringement of Gaye’s 1976 ballad, “After The Dance.” (Update: this is incorrect. The jury did find that Love After War infringed on After the Dance. The Gaye family was awarded $9,375 for that violation. Note that the suit originally claimed that “Blurred Lines” also infringed on Funckadelic’s “Sexy Ways”, however the defendant for that song, Bridgeport music, dropped out. Funkadelic frontman George Clinton has defended Pharrell and Thicke.)

It’s worth mentioning that Thicke, Pharrell and T.I. sued the Gayes first, seeking a declaration that “Blurred Lines” did not infringe on Gaye’s copyright. The Gayes’ lawyer claims this successful countersuit was a reaction to the original lawsuit. Here’s more:

A Los Angeles jury found Tuesday that Pharrell Williams’ and Robin Thicke’s 2013 hit “Blurred Lines” infringed upon the copyright for Marvin Gaye’s 1977 “Got to Give It Up” and awarded $7.3 million to Gaye’s family.

The Gayes’ attorney, Richard Busch, told reporters that he had immediately filed for an injunction to stop the sale of “Blurred Lines.”

“They started this fight, and we ended it,” Busch said. “The jury saw through everything, and we’re very pleased…”

Howard King, the attorney for Williams and Thicke, said, “Of course, we’re disappointed.” He said he had “no idea” whether his clients wanted to appeal, but he said the case “is only in the seventh inning.”

“Nothing detracts from the fact as we know it that the track ‘Blurred Lines’ came from the heart and soul of Pharrell Williams,” King said.

Williams, T.I. (real name Clifford Harris Jr.) and Thicke — who performed “Blurred Lines” — took credit in multiple interviews for co-writing the song. They preemptively sued the Gaye family in August after members complained about similarities between “Blurred Lines” and “Got to Give It Up.”

The family countersued, claiming not only that Thicke ripped off “Got to Give It Up” but also that he infringed on the copyright to “After the Dance” for the title track of his 2011 album “Love After War.”

The jury found that T.I. wasn’t responsible for any infringement.

Williams testified last week that he grew up listening to Gaye’s music and was familiar with “Got to Give It Up” but didn’t use it as a basis for “Blurred Lines.” He said he was only trying to evoke the feel of Gaye’s music.

Gaye was “one of the ones we look up to,” Williams said. “This is the last place I want to be.”

[From NBC]

When you hear the two songs in comparison, video below, the similarities are hard to deny. What’s more is that Thicke told GQ that when he wrote “Blurred Lines” with Pharrell, he told Pharrell that “Got To Give It Up” was ‘one of my favorite songs of all time,’ and said that ‘we should make something like that, something with that groove.’ Thicke later claimed in a deposition for this lawsuit that he didn’t actually co-write the song because he was high on alcohol and Vicodin. So it sounds like the original Marvin Gaye song was either a direct inspiration or deliberately ripped off, which of course Thicke and Pharrell denied. Thicke also told Oprah that “half of his music was inspired by Marvin Gaye.”

Many musicians worry that this lawsuit will have a chilling effect on the music industry. They cite the different melody and chord changes in the two songs, along with the fact that the jury wasn’t even allowed to hear a full version of “Got To Give It Up.” (This was due to the fact that in 1977 only sheet music was allowed to be copywritten, not songs.) The LA Times has an editorial which questions whether Gaye’s estate would have sued if Thicke hadn’t directly acknowledged Gaye as an influence. Whatever the case, this lawsuit seems far from over. Pharrell and Thicke are likely to file an appeal. Meanwhile a lawyer for the Gayes has stated that they will petition the court to cease sales of “Blurred Lines” until they can reach an agreement on profit sharing.