By Lisa Respers France
Robin Thicke is reportedly being proactive in protecting his hit “Blurred Lines.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, was lawsuit was filed in California federal court Thursday by Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and Clifford Harris, Jr. (the legal name of rapper T.I.) against the family of the late singer Marvin Gaye and Bridgeport Music, which owns some of the music of the group Funkadelic.
The three men are battling back against complaints that “Blurred Lines” bears similarities to Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” and Funakedlic’s “Sexy Ways.”
“Plaintiffs, who have the utmost respect for and admiration of Marvin Gaye, Funkadelic and their musical legacies, reluctantly file this action in the face of multiple adverse claims from alleged successors in interest to those artists,” the suit says. “Defendants continue to insist that plaintiffs’ massively successful composition, ‘Blurred Lines,’ copies ‘their’ compositions.”
THR notes that the Gaye family and Bridgeport Music were said to have threatened legal action unless a monetary settlement was reached in the disagreement and Thicke, Williams and Harris would like a court to rule that the “Gayes do not have an interest in the copyright to the composition ‘Got To Give It Up’ sufficient to confer standing on them to pursue claims of infringement of that composition.”
Rather than infringing on the copyright of the original tunes, the trio’s suit says that being “reminiscent of a ‘sound’ is not copyright infringement.”
Funkedelic front man George Clinton apparently agrees and tweeted his support of Thicke and the gang on Thursday.
You can read a copy of the lawsuit here. So what do you think? Is “Blurred Lines” paying homage, or too close to the originals?
The-CNN-Wire
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