Blurred Lines final verdict: Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams to pay $5m to Marvin Gaye family

The five-year legal battle has been closely scrutinised by the music industry and sparked a number of similar copyright cases in recent years

Roisin O'Connor
Music Correspondent
Thursday 13 December 2018 11:51 GMT
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Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke perform their 2013 hit 'Blurred Lines'
Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke perform their 2013 hit 'Blurred Lines'

Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams have been ordered to pay nearly $5m to the family of Marvin Gaye, at the conclusion of a long-running legal battle of their song "Blurred Lines" that began in 2013.

Gaye's family initially won the case in 2015, claiming Thicke and Williams' hit song copied Gaye's 1977 song "Got to Give it Up", but the pair appealed.

A California court upheld the verdict in March this year, and the new amended judgement has since confirmed the settlement.

According to California federal judge John A Kronstadt's new amended judgement, via Billboard, Thicke, Williams and Williams's More Water From Nazareth Publishing Inc are jointly required to pay Gaye's family.

They jointly owe damages of $2,848,846.50. Thicke has been ordered to pay an additional $1,768,191.88, and Williams and his publishing company must pay another $357,630.97.

The Gaye family is also entitled to receive prejudgment interest on the damages award and respective profits against each of them, totalling $9,097.51. They are also entitled to royalties going forward from the song, for 50 per cent of the songwriter and publishing revenue.

The five-year legal battle has been closely scrutinised by the music industry and sparked a number of similar copyright cases in recent years.

Many experts felt the original verdict was a mistake, because it punished Thicke and Williams's song for copying the "feel" of Gaye's classic – an intangible quality – instead of directly plagiarising a sequence of notes, riff, lyrics or other musical phrases.

During the appeal court, one of the three judges dissented to voice similar concerns, and warn of the precedent the verdict could set for the music industry.

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Circuit judge Jacqueline Nguyen said the two songs "differed in melody, harmony and rhythm" and said the verdict "strikes a devastating blow to future musicians and composers everywhere".

However, Gaye's family claimed it was a "victory for the rights of all musicians", with his children's mother Jan adding it was a "wonderful recognition of Marvin's creativity and the lasting value of one of his greatest songs".

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