Gaye family seeks to block Blurred Lines distribution
The family of Motown legend Marvin Gaye has asked a court to block further sales of smash hit Blurred Lines after a jury concluded that the song was plagiarised.
Gaye’s estate on March 10 was awarded more than US$7 million (230 million baht) after convincing a jury that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ Blurred Lines.
The song, the biggest hit of 2013, plagiarised the late singer’s 1977 track Got To Give It Up.
In a request for an injunction, the Gaye family asked a federal court in Los Angeles to halt all distribution of Blurred Lines and to bar Thicke and Williams from performing it.
“A permanent injunction is justified because there is continued infringement of Got To Give It Up,” said the motion submitted on Tuesday. “The jury’s award only applies to past sales of the infringing work and does not provide the Gayes a percentage of future sales and profit.”
The family said that it was not seeking to kill the song permanently but rather to negotiate terms for Gaye to share credit and revenue.
The family rejected arguments that the verdict — which looked, due to copyright law, at the sheet music for the two songs — did not apply to the recording, saying that without the song, all label Interscope “would be distributing is a picture of Robin Thicke and a CD containing silence”.
Thicke himself in media interviews before the court case had said that he had been inspired by Gaye.
But the court decision has triggered an angry response from many songwriters, who note that there were major differences between the two songs, including the melodies and lyrics.
Williams, a popular songwriter who had another smash hit with Happy, said in an interview published on Thursday that all creative people had inspirations.
“The verdict handicaps any creator out there who is making something that might be inspired by something else,” Williams told the Financial Times.
“If we lose our freedom to be inspired, we’re going to look up one day and the entertainment industry as we know it will be frozen in litigation.”