marvin gaye Family sues to block sale of hit song

The family of late Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Marvin Gaye filed an injunction to block the sale of the 2013 hit song "Blurred Lines" after winning a $7.3 million judgment that the tune was ripped off from one of Gaye's biggest hits in the 1970s.

The family's attorney, Richard Busch, told Rolling Stone magazine after the judgment in the family's favor that it would seek such a motion.

"We'll be asking the court to enter an injunction prohibiting the further sale and distribution of 'Blurred Lines' unless and until we can reach an agreement with those guys on the other side about how future monies that are received will be shared," Busch said to Rolling Stone then.

A Los Angeles jury ruled that "Blurred Lines" songwriters Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke infringed on Gaye's 1977 hit "Got to Give It Up."

The New York Times reported that Nona and Frankie Gaye, two of Marvin Gaye's children, will receive $4 million in damages plus about $3.3 million of the profits Thicke and Williams earned from the song.

The "Blurred Lines" decision is one of the largest copyrights damages awards in music history, noted the newspaper. In one comparable case, a court ordered Michael Bolton and Sony to pay the Isley Brothers $5.4 million in 1994 for infringing on a song by that group from the 1960s.
An accounting statement submitted in court at the time of the trial showed "Blurred Lines" had made more than $16 million in profit, noted the Times. Charles Cronin, of the Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California, who specializes in music copyright, told the Times that it was unusual for a music copyright case to reach a jury trial.

"Music infringement claims tend to be settled early on, with financially successful defendants doling out basically extorted payoffs to potential plaintiffs rather than facing expensive, protracted and embarrassing litigation," Cronin told the Times.

Gaye, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, was one of Motown's top performers, playing instruments with The Miracles and Martha and the Vandellas before going solo.