Pharrell, Thicke must pay $7.3M for copying Gaye’s song

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] jury found “Blurred Lines” co-creators Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied parts of Marvin Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got To Give it Up” for their 2012 song, and awarded $7.3 million to the late soul-singer’s estate. Thicke and Williams have been battling Gaye’s children for a year over whether or not their bass-driven, Grammy-nominated smash hit took too liberally from Gaye’s song.
“Blurred Lines” raked in about $16 million in profits for its creators and record labels; Thicke and Williams, who is also a judge on “The Voice,” made about $5 million each.
Rapper T.I. also raps on “Blurred Lines,” but reportedly made about $700,000 from it.
Thicke and Williams denied ripping off the Gaye work for “Blurred Lines.”
Both are listed as songwriters on the credits, but Thicke said Williams wrote it on his own.
Thicke also testified in a deposition he was “drunk and high on drugs” at the time.
He claimed he was “mentally absent” from the process, adding he was “lucky enough to be in the room.”
Williams testified he wrote “Blurred Lines” in an hour in 2012, and the pair recorded it in one night.
Gaye’s daughter Nona Gaye said she felt “free” after the verdict — “free from . . . Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s chains and what they tried to keep on us and the lies that were told.”