Posts Tagged: "Pharrell Williams"

Ninth Circuit says ‘Blurred Lines’ Infringed Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got To Give It Up’

On Wednesday, March 21, 2018, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the song Blurred Lines infringed the copyright in Marvin Gaye’s song Got To Give It Up. See Williams v. Gaye, No. 15-56880. Affirming most of the decision of the district court, the Ninth Circuit also held that the award of actual damages and infringers’ profits, and a running royalty, were all proper. The panel did, however, reverse a piece of the district court ruling, finding that the district court erred in overturning the jury’s general verdict in favor of certain parties because the defendants waived any challenge to the consistency of the jury’s general verdicts.

Not So Blurred Lines

Some IP commentators love to hate the Blurred Lines music copyright decision. A primary critique has stoked unnecessary fear in musicians that the decision blurs the line between protectable expression and unprotectable style or genre. Much of the animosity, however, is based on misunderstanding or misconstruing the law or facts. This post clarifies this aspect of the case to show why the district court decision was reasonable and should be affirmed in the current appeal at the Ninth Circuit.

Innovation Lessons From a Billionaire

I did not start out to be an inventor,” writes the billionaire inventor and spinal surgeon Gary K. Michelson in the preface to a newly-published book entitled The Intangible Advantage: Understanding Intellectual Property in the New Economy. “I wanted to be a doctor,” he explained. “That’s all I ever wanted to be, ever since the day I sat at my grandmother’s kitchen table — I must have been seven years old — and smelled her flesh burning on the stove. You see, my grandmother suffered from syringomyelia, a crippling spinal disease that results in terrible back pain and the loss of sensation to pain and temperature in the extremities, especially the hands. When I saw the flames licking up through her fingers that day, I screamed, and she quickly doused her hand in the sink.

Robin Thicke Sues Marvin Gaye Because He’s Infringing?

Recently I was driving around between appointments and flipping through radio stations on Sirius XM. I came across a song that at first I thought was the summer hit by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams – Blurred Lines. But that wasn’t the song at all, rather is was Marvin Gaye’s Got to Give it Up. I knew it would only be time before reading about some kind of settlement between Marvin Gaye’s family and Thicke/Williams, but Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams suing the family of Marvin Gaye asserting that they are not infringing the copyright in Got to Give it Up would be hilarious if it weren’t so utterly ridiculous.