Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams may have lost their legal battle against the family of Marvin Gaye, but they aren’t done fighting.
Robin and Pharrell are officially seeking to appeal the verdict — and they want you to know they’re fighting for more than just themselves.
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According to their attorney Howard King, declaring Blurred Lines is infringing on Got To Give It Up sets a dangerous precedent.
In a statement, King said:
“We owe it to song writers around the world to make sure this verdict doesn’t stand.
My clients know that they wrote the song ‘Blurred Lines’ from their hearts and souls and no other source… We are going to exercise every post trial remedy we have to make sure this verdict does not stand. We look at it as being in the seventh inning of a game that could go into extra innings…
Pharrell has readily admitted that Marvin Gaye is one of his idols, but it’s silk and rayon. If this is the way the law is going to go, then the creator of rayon better look behind him for lawsuits from the owners of silk, because, even though they feel the same they are structurally, completely different just like these songs.”
So do they have a legal leg to stand on? Well, like the lines in the song, the law is blurred a bit here.
When does a song go from being “inspired by” another to being a ripoff?
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Legally, there’s no magic metric here. So it’s possible another judge, another jury could disagree with the ruling.
Even Marvin’s old friend Stevie Wonder has publicly stated he didn’t think they were similar enough for a lawsuit.
We’ll just have to see how it all shakes out, but it’s clear this was just the first battle.
[Image via Blurred Lines Music Video.]
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