Marvin Gaye's family coming for Pharrell/Robin Thicke AGAIN
Pharrell Williams and the Marvin Gaye family are continuing their “Blurred Lines” court fight with new requests
Quote:
The newest stage of the copyright battle over "Blurred Lines" has commenced with new motions being presented on Friday (May 1) in a fight that resulted in a $7.4 million jury verdict this past March. U.S. District Judge John Kronstadt has several options in deciding what to do about Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams' "Blurred Lines," which a jury ruled to be an infringement of Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up."
The best case scenario for the Gaye family is that the judge orders an injunction on the song, forcing the "Blurred Lines" artists to come to the negotiating table, where they'll face demands for hefty ongoing license fees for using the Gaye hit. Additionally, the Gaye family wants the judge to extend liability to various Universal Music record companies, notwithstanding the jury's decision to give them a pass. If the judge grants the Gayes' motions, the penalty for copyright infringement will be climbing much higher than $7.4 million.
But the judge could go in an entirely different direction by trimming the jury's damages award, or even better for the Williams' camp, ordering up a new trial.
They want to at least do something about the $7.4 million damage award, which was comprised of $4 million in actual damages (related to lost licensing money for the Gaye family) and $3.4 million in non-publishing profits. The Williams' camp believes the first was "grossly excessive and not supported by any admissible evidence" while the latter was also in error. They point out that the jury awarded twice as much as Williams got in profits while also turning back to the issue that "at most... only a small portion of the copyrighted musical expression of GIVE appears in BLURRED."
Taking into account their own musicologist Sandy Wilbur's testimony that "the elements of GIVE claimed to have been copied amount to less than 5% of the BLURRED composition," the Williams' camp wants the profits awarded to be appropriately trimmed to no more than five percent of non-publishing profits. In other words, if Williams and Thicke can't get a post-trial vindication nor a new trial, they want to slash the $7.4 million award to under $680,000.
Ridiculous. They shouldn't have won in the first place...
You've gotta be joking. That song is a direct rip. Even when my parents first heard it, they mentioned Got to give it up. I do think the family is being a bit greedy now, but let's not act like they weren't justified in suing them.
They just won't give up will they. You got lucky first time around, don't push it.
