Marvin’s estate: Let’s get $5.3M award on
Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams have “Got to Give It Up.”
That’s the word from Marvin Gaye’s estate, which has asked a Los Angeles appeals court to uphold the $5.3 million final judgment handed last year that found the two artists ripped off the late Gaye’s 1977 classic.
“Blurred Lines,” Thicke’s 2013 chart-topper, borrowed too generously from Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up,” a jury found.
The two singers appealed the verdict in August, claiming the decision, if left to stand, would stifle musical creativity.
They also claim the judge erred in not limiting the original case to comparisons of the songs’ sheet music — as mandated by pre1978 copyright law.
The judge permitted comparisons of the songs’ recordings.
Gaye’s family countered on Thursday that if the appeals court decided to give the two a new trial, the trial judge must understand that the copyright on “Got to Give It Up” is not so “thin” as to require “virtual identity” between the original version and an infringing copy.
“Music is imaginative, not strictly factual or functional,” their brief claims — and because of that, “Got to Give It Up” warrants “much broader protection under the copyright laws.”
The Gaye family also contends the court should award it the full cost of its lawyers’ fees on grounds, “a court must choose one and only one ‘prevailing party’ to receive any costs award.”
But with pretrial deadlines already stretching into May 2017, there’s likely plenty of time to determine who that prevailing party will be.