{"id":243061,"date":"2016-08-26T03:49:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T03:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=243061"},"modified":"2016-08-26T03:49:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T03:49:07","slug":"robin-thicke-and-pharrell-appeal-against-blurred-lines-copyright-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=243061","title":{"rendered":"Robin Thicke and Pharrell appeal against Blurred Lines copyright ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams are appealing against a court&#8217;s decision that their single Blurred Lines copied Marvin Gaye&#8217;s song Got To Give It Up.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2015, a judge initially ordered the pair to pay the Marvin Gaye&#8217;s family more than $7m (\u00a35.3m) in damages for copyright infringement.<\/p>\n<p>The family was also awarded a 50% interest in royalties from Blurred Lines, the biggest single of 2013.<\/p>\n<p>The pair&#8217;s lawyers are now seeking to appeal against the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>They say the case should never have gone to trial and that the verdict should be overturned, or a new trial ordered.<\/p>\n<div class=\"related_stories\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>What was the issue?<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_container \"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/13FF4\/production\/_84280918_de8ed705-de4b-4124-94b6-347e8f45a661.jpg\" alt=\"Blurred Lines video\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"caption\"><span class=\"screen_reader_text\">Image caption<\/span>The song went to number one in the UK, while its X-rated video provoked controversy<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Gaye family sued Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for copyright infringement in 2013 after Blurred Lines was released.<\/p>\n<p>They argued that the song copied parts of Marvin Gaye&#8217;s song Got To Give It Up, which constituted a copyright infringement.<\/p>\n<p>Pharrell, who co-wrote the song, told the court at the time that Marvin Gaye&#8217;s music was part of the soundtrack of his youth and that he was &#8220;channelling&#8230; that late &#8217;70s feeling&#8221; when he wrote the song.<\/p>\n<p>But he insisted that he didn&#8217;t copy the track.<\/p>\n<p>The jury thought differently and found against him and Robin Thicke.<\/p>\n<p>A judge later cut the amount Pharrell Williams had to pay to $5.3m (\u00a34m).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why are they appealing?<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"image_container \"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/EEFD\/production\/_90918116_thicke.jpg\" alt=\"Robin Thicke\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams&#8217; lawyers have tabled an appeal against the verdict on the grounds that &#8220;a cascade of legal errors&#8221; led to the decision.<\/p>\n<p>They argue that the judge gave a number of improper instructions to the jury.<\/p>\n<p>The Gaye family&#8217;s lawyer Richard Busch disagrees.<\/p>\n<p>He says: &#8220;We obviously believe the jury and district judge who confirmed the jury&#8217;s findings were correct in finding infringement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our own opening responsive brief will contain what we believe will be very strong replies to each and every point they raise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams are appealing against a court&#8217;s decision that their single Blurred Lines copied Marvin Gaye&#8217;s song Got To Give It Up. In March 2015, a judge initially ordered the pair to pay the Marvin Gaye&#8217;s family more than $7m (\u00a35.3m) in damages for copyright infringement. The family was also awarded a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":243062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-showbiz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/243062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}