How Siar Is ‘Blurred L’ To A 1977 Marv Gaye H? – The Hollywood Reporter

Contents:

• MARV GAYE FAY PREVAILS 'BLURRED L' PLAGIARISM SE
• HOW SIAR IS ‘BLURRED L’ TO A 1977 MARV GAYE H?
• ‘BLURRED L’ INGED ON MARV GAYE COPYRIGHT, JURY RUL
• MARV GAYE'S FAY WS 'BLURRED L' APPEAL; PHARRELL, ROB THICKE MT PAY
• WILLIAMS V. GAYE: “BLURRED L” APPEAL HEARG CENTERS ON ADMISSIBILY OF EVINCE ABOUT ORIGAL SOUND RERDG
• WHY MARV GAYE'S FAY WILL PROBABLY LOSE THE 'BLURRED L' CASE TO ROB THICKE
• ROB THICKE, PHARRELL WILLIAMS TO PAY $5 LN TO MARV GAYE TATE FOR 'BLURRED L'

MARV GAYE FAY PREVAILS 'BLURRED L' PLAGIARISM SE

Compare and ntrast the two songs by listeng to the troductn to Blurred L, by Rob Thicke and Pharrell Williams followed by the openg sectn of Marv Gaye's Got to Give Up. Circu Court of Appeals said Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give It Up” served “broad” pyright protectn, and the March 2015 jury verdict favor of Gaye’s three children uld stand bee there was “not an absolute absence of evince” of siary between the two songs.

And Interspe should be liable, but the appeals urt “Blurred L” se has transfixed the mic dtry, promptg bate over the le between plagiarism and honorg works by popular artists like Gaye, whose songs also clu “I Heard It Through the Grapeve” and “What’s Gog On.

Wednday’s cisn prompted a strong dissent om Circu Judge Jacquele Nguyen, who said the cisn let the Gay “acplish what no one has before: pyright a mil style, ” and expand the potential for further pyright ligatn.

HOW SIAR IS ‘BLURRED L’ TO A 1977 MARV GAYE H?

”Williams, whose songs also clu “Happy, ” admted urt to beg a Gaye fan sce childhood but said “Blurred L” and “Got to Give Up” were siar genre has terviews acknowledged drawg on Gaye’s song but mataed sworn statements that he exaggerated his ntributn to “Blurred L.

A judge has entered a nearly $5 ln judgment agast Rob Thicke and Pharrell Williams favor of Marv Gaye’s fay the long-nng lawsu volvg pyright gement surroundg Thicke and Williams’ song “Blurred L” and Gaye’s 1977 h “Got to Give It Up, ” Billboard reports. Addnally, The Gaye fay is entled to receive prejudgment tert on the damag award and rpective profs agast each of them, which totals to $9097. The Gaye fay is also entled to royalti gog forward for 50 percent of the songwrer and publishg revenue g om “Blurred L.

Will return to Los Angel feral urt on Tuday to fight claims they pied their multiplatum song om Gaye’s 1977 h “Got To Give It Up.

‘BLURRED L’ INGED ON MARV GAYE COPYRIGHT, JURY RUL

The sger’s children Frankie and Nona Gaye rpond wh unterclaims that the micians ged “Got To Give It Up” — and that Thicke and ex-wife Pla Patton pied a send Gaye song, “After The Dance, ” -wrg Thicke’s 2011 track “Love After War. In recent motns, Thicke and Williams’ attorneys threw the Gay a pyright curveball wh the argument they don’t own their father’s mercially released rerdgs — they only own the posnal elements the sheet mic “lead sheets. ” (The rerdgs belong to Motown Rerds, which is owned by Universal, which turn owns Interspe — the rerd pany that released Blurred L and a fendant the Gay’ untersu.

His cisn enforced that the Marv Gaye rerdgs of “Got To Give It Up” and “After The Dance” uldn’t be heard urt — the attorneys are only g stripped-down stmentals. But more importantly, the cisn means that cidg whether gement occurred, the jury will only nsir whether “Blurred L” and “Love After War” borrow excsively om what’s the Gay’ lead sheets. The Gay’ attorneys argue that what’s left — the lyrics, the vol melody, the keyboard le and the bass — still remble Thicke’s songs enough to say they’re gement.

MARV GAYE'S FAY WS 'BLURRED L' APPEAL; PHARRELL, ROB THICKE MT PAY

On Thursday and Friday, the Gaye fay’s attorney Richard Bch lled a pair of milogists to the stand, and the urtroom beme a urse on mic theory wh their ttimoni on what they hear mon between the posns.

“Signature phrase”: Judh Fell, the Berkeley-ted head of a milogy nsultg firm, labeled one phrase per song the immediately intifiable “signature phrase”: the openg lyrics “I ed to go out to parti” Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up” and the chos opener “And that’s why I’m gon’ take a good girl” “Blurred L. The Gay’ other mil expert, Harvard profsor of Ain-Amerin mic Ingrid Monson, argued that Gaye’s bass le and s pairg wh a reggae- or ragtime-fluenced keyboard melody were highly unual Motown mic. That means ’s hard for Thicke and Williams to claim they were fluenced by the genre general, she said, stead of the Gaye songs specifilly.

Le by le, the experts pared lyrics cludg Gaye’s “move up / Turn ’round / Shake down” and Thicke’s “Shake around / Get down / Get up.

WILLIAMS V. GAYE: “BLURRED L” APPEAL HEARG CENTERS ON ADMISSIBILY OF EVINCE ABOUT ORIGAL SOUND RERDG

The rap verse “Blurred L” begs and ends at the same pot the song as the Gaye song’s “parlando” — a lyril chantg Fell scribed as “a precursor to rap.

” The jury looked amed while Bch and Fell pared lyrics om the parlando and the rap verse, cludg pairg Gaye’s “Let me step to/ to your erotic zone” wh a le of T. “Theme X”: Fell intified a short, recurrg melodic le she labeled “theme X, ” heard Gaye’s sung lyrics “dancg lady” unr the ma vol.

Miller rpond that Thicke’s vols don’t match the Gaye sheet mic, but Fell said the discrepancy is bee Thicke’s theme X match a harmony not wrten but implied the lead sheet. AdvertisementSKIP McCarten/RtersMarch 10, 2015For the last year and a half, the mic dtry has been gripped by a lawsu over whether Rob Thicke’s 2013 h “Blurred L” was merely remiscent of a song by Marv Gaye, or had crossed the le to plagiarism.

WHY MARV GAYE'S FAY WILL PROBABLY LOSE THE 'BLURRED L' CASE TO ROB THICKE

A feral jury Los Angel on Tuday agreed that “Blurred L” had gone too far, and pied elements of Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give It Up” whout permissn.

Williams sued first, seekg a claratn om a judge to protect them agast gement claims that they said had been ma privately by the Gaye fay. Nona and Frankie Gaye quickly the verdict was read on Tuday, members of the Gaye fay — who were prent at urt throughout the trial — exulted and shed tears of joy.

”A rrectn was ma onMarch 13, 2015: An article on Wednday about the pyright gement trial volvg the song “Blurred L” referred imprecisely to the damag award to the fay of Marv Gaye. Pharrell Williams and Rob Thicke had a certified h on their hands wh 2013’s "Blurred L, " a Billboard Song of the Summer that seemed to many listeners to borrow om Marv Gaye’s qutsential 1977 h “Got To Give It Up. ” Of urse, Pharrell and Thicke disagreed wh that sentiment, and the pyright issue sent them to urt agast the Gaye tate.

ROB THICKE, PHARRELL WILLIAMS TO PAY $5 LN TO MARV GAYE TATE FOR 'BLURRED L'

Wh the Circu Court fdg favor of the Gaye tate, means that artists might nsir errg on the si of utn and extreme due diligence when to the forc that lead to song or beat creatn. Though some artists will say this is the end of pyright law as we know , the attorney for the Gaye tate poss that do not. Bee 's mighty difficult to listen to Stevie Wonr, Marv Gaye and Dnne Warwick your whole life and not some way be spired by their mic a way that might meld wh or fluence your own origal works later life.

That's bee the song was excellent and will ntue to garner streams and sps, so Gaye’s fay stands to prof nsirably om the age and future age if the song ntu to circulate. The attorney for some members of the Gaye fay says the se played out well, and he also says he believ the Gaye fay would have pursued this lawsu even if the song wasn't a smash h.

It regniz that the jury properly found that 'Blurred L' pied Marv Gaye’s groundbreakg 1977 h 'Got to Give It Up, '" said Richard Bch, an attorney for some of the Gaye fay members. In the 2015 trial urt proceedgs, the jury renred a verdict fdg Pharrell Williams and Rob Thicke liable for pyright gement, based on the “substantial siary” of their song “Blurred L” to the 1977 Marv Gaye h “Got To Give It Up.

” Gaye’s rerdg was released 1977, when sound rerdgs were not protected by the then-effective Copyright Act of 1909; only the pyright the origal posn was protectable. In 2015, Profsor Jennifer Jenks of De Law School poted out that “[m]any of the featur that make the songs sound siar—cludg the falsetto and the e of a wbell to provi rhythmic accents—were not part of Gaye’s posn.

Bee Gaye never wrote the song down and the lead sheet was later prepared by a transcriber, she argued, the origal rerdg was the bt evince of Gaye’s pyright the posn. The Nth Circu Court of Appeals California has jt affirmed a jury’s verdict that Rob Thicke and Pharrell Williams ged Marv Gaye’s pyright the blockbter pop h, “Blurred L.

The platiffs, heirs to Marv Gaye, had two experts who broke down this song two different “streams, ” cludg a “stream X” which referred to a scendg bass, and the keyboard parts and rhythms. Another expert had put together a mash up between the origal Marv Gaye song allegedly beg ged, and the “Blurred L” rerdg. The Appellate Court thought that the District Court nsired all the right factors and found no reason to reverse the trial urt’s cisn not to award the platiff Gaye s attorney’s fe.

"The majory allows the Gay to acplish what no one has before: pyright a mil style" …"'Blurred L' and 'Got to Give It Up' are not objectively siar. The dissentg appellate urt judge nclud that the Gaye’s wns “… intified four siar elements, none of which is protectable: (a) each phrase begs wh repeated not; (b) the phras have three intil pch a row the first measure and two the send measure; (c) each phrase begs wh the same rhythm; and (d) each phrase ends on a melisma (one word sung over multiple pch). Per the verdict of the California jury that’s been hearg the se, Thicke’s “rapey” anthem “Blurred L” is a direct rip-off of Gaye’s “Got to Give Up.

” The lg after nearly two years of odd ligatn, om Thicke tryg to preemptively sue the Gaye tate to this actual glor urt the payment uld’ve been avoid had Thicke and Williams read our gui to gettg away wh pop plagiarism, I thought would be bt to look at om a ntral standpot based only on the actual mic, given how this lg uld tablish a dangero theory analyz mic specific ways — the rhythm, the harmony, and the melody. From a purely scientific standpot, here’s how the two songs groove is siar, but the rhythms are ’s a big nce here: Williams’ beat was clearly fluenced by Gaye’s. That don’t provi enough grounds for anythg on s own, though, otherwise every poser who wrote a march the past century ow John Philip Souza, who posed everythg om “Stars and Strip Forever” to what most people thk of as the Monty Python theme, a ton of two songs aren’t actually rhythmilly siar beyond the beat: the lead vol l are far different, wh Thicke stickg to simple rhythms on beat while Gaye stunts his to off-beat not wh nsistent lengths.

They’re set different keys, wh Thicke’s song G major and Gaye’s A major — but even if they weren’t, Gaye’s posn still has a different set of chords and Thicke a clever twist that Gaye don’ are lerally only two chords “Blurred L”; a lot of people have appropriately labeled G to D, but ’s actually C/G to D. If the siari chords are enough for the songwrers to owe Gaye, than Smokey Robson should hire a good lawyer; the chord progrsn to “Got To Give It Up” is monplace soul, and as the leadg Motown songwrer, Robson ed IV to V on several hs a before “Got to Give Up” was one on Earth would nfe the two melody, for all tents and purpos, is the aspect of songs most people notice first.

(Another small nce: the bass Gaye’s work the same chromatic passg motn as the “hey, hey, hey” part, but I don’t thk the urt was lg that the fill Gaye plays on synth bass was ripped off by three of “hey”.