The landmark copyright trial surrounding Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" is not done yet. Thicke, Pharrell Williams, and T.I. are appealing the March 2015 decision that saw them declared guilty of copyright infringement, and the Gaye family awarded over $5m plus 50% of the song's royalties going forward. The group already appealed for a retrial, which was dismissed.
On Wednesday, August 24, lawyers representing the three artists filed their opening brief in their quest to overturn the guilty verdict. The Guardian reports that lawyers argued that “if left to stand, the "Blurred Lines" verdict would chill musical creativity and inhibit the process by which later artists draw inspiration from earlier artists to create new popular music”. The appeal is based on the "Blurred Lines" camp's opinion that the judge in the original case, John Kronstadt, misread the law by comparing the audio recordings of the two songs, as opposed to the sheet music.
The FADER has reached out to a rep for Robin Thicke for further comment.
