This is just a ridiculous judgment. Pathetic money grubbing from a bunch of no-talent moochers living off their ancestor's talent. The absurd levels of hyperbole employed by this family regarding their "victory" is a good clue to how cynical a move this was.
So you're against copyright ownership being passed on to surviving family members?
No not at all, in fact I strongly disagree with the prevailing opinion these days, which seems to be that copyright should expire even before the creator does. I'm all in favour of strong intellectual property rights, and children should be able to reap the rewards of their parents work the same as if they had inherited property, or money, but this is a clear abuse IMO.
This is a bunch of people who did not write or partake in the creation of Gayes music abusing his legacy to extort money from other artists, just because they declared what an inspiration he was to them. I can't help but feel that as a credible artist Gaye would be horrified, although that is pure conjecture of course.
Blurred Lines isn't a great song, but it is distinctly a song in its own right, that is clearly just influenced by something that came before, like all art. Nobody is ever going to confuse the two tracks, and the release of this song hasn't deprived the Gaye estate of a single cent.
I'm not sure, but I hope so. The songs share some vague percussive similarities, and are thematically similar, but they didn't take any lyrics, or notable melody that is crucial to the song.
I actually agree with this, but I think the problem was that Pharell and Thicke copied the most distinctive part of Gaye's song too closely. The verse and chorus melodies aren't much in Gaye's song. The most recognizable part of his song is the rhythm track. That is the song's real hook (as opposed to the title). That is likely what caught Pharell and Thicke's ear's and prompted them to use it in their song. So, they copied the thing that arguably "made" the song a hit.
Perhaps, but that it isn't the thing that made
their song a hit. There's a very catchy and distinctive melody, and lots of content that bears no relation to the Gaye track. Those elements, in addition to very controversial lyrics and a raunchy video, are what made the song a hit.
I wouldn't deny that there's a flavour of the Gaye track there, but that's well within the bounds of homage rather than plagiarism. This verdict places Gaye's music at the heart of Blurred Lines' success, and that is simply not the case.
Pop music copyright infringement claims and lawsuits happen all the time but most get settled informally. In the last couple of weeks it was announced that there had been a claim brought by Tom Petty, that the song by Sam Smith, Stay With Me, infringed on the Petty's copyrighted Won't Back Down. The hook melody in "Stay" is nearly identical to Petty's song. But this one was rather quietly settled. That's why I'd like to know about the Blurred/Give it Up negotiations. One of the parties was being unreasonable.
As I understand it, the Gaye estate accused Williams & Thicke of copying from the track, and started needling them for money. That prompted W&T to pre-emptively sue to obtain a judgment that the track was not infringing copyright to head off any future legal action, not for damages, but simply to protect their creation. A perfectly reasonable response in the face of a claim that should never have been made in the first place. Gaye's family countersued for $25million in damages, essentially ALL profit associated with the track, as they would have done anyway if W&T had not given in to their attempts at extortion, and that is what ultimately led to this travesty.
Using a melody as the centrepiece of a song that was also the centrepiece of another song is a little murkier than this case I feel. In that case a unique and distintive melody was central to the success of both pieces of music. That's not really comparable to this case, where all W&T were accused of was stealing the "feel" and "sound" of Gaye's track.
