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Marvin Gaye record will not be played in court during Blurred Lines trial

By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 28 January 2015

So it seems that the main qualification for joining the jury in the upcoming and set-to-be-entertaining ‘Blurred Lines’ court case may just be that you’ve never previously heard one of the records at the heart of the case, Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got To Give Up’.

As previously reported, the terrible twosome behind the pop monstrosity that is ‘Blurred Lines’ – Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke – are accused of nicking a sizable slice of the Marvin Gaye classic for their 2013 hit.

While both stars deny that claim – Thicke says he was too drunk and drugged up at the time to have had any input on the record whatsoever, while Williams noted of Gaye “he’s an Aries, I respect him” – core to the defence are some copyright law technicalities.

In particular, what elements of Gaye’s song are actually protected by copyright. It’s the song rather than the recording copyright that is under the spotlight, and Thicke and Williams’ lawyers argue that only the core composition, as represented in the sheet music, enjoy protection. Any bips or bops or ‘yeah, yeahs’ that appear in the final recorded version of the song, they say, are outside of the copyright. Which is important because it’s arguably those extra bits n pieces that ‘Blurred Lines’ borrowed.

As previously reported, with that in mind Team Lines requested that neither ‘Blurred Lines’ nor ‘Got To Give Up’ be aired in the courtroom in their released form, arguing that instead the core compositions of both should be played on a keyboard, so that the jury decide from that, and that alone, whether there has been any infringement. And the judge in the case has now agreed with that request.

Noting that this whole dispute began when Williams and Thicke filed legal papers to secure confirmation that their hit did not infringe, Richard Busch, representing the Gayes, was unsurprisingly critical of this decision yesterday.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, he said: “Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke started this lawsuit against the Gaye family, but then filed motions asking the court to prohibit the playing of Marvin Gaye’s song, which prevents the jury from comparing the songs. We know of no similar case where this has occurred, and do not believe that a truly fair trial can take place if the jury cannot hear and compare both songs. We are currently exploring all of our options”.

But speaking for the ‘Blurred Line’ peddlers, legal man Howard King welcomed the ruling, saying: “A truly fair trial requires only a comparison of the compositions, not the sound recording which is not owned by the Gayes. Given the fact that the compositions have absolutely no substantial similarities, there is little chance the Gayes can prevail at trial or on any threatened appeal”.

As we speak all of this is set to kick off in court on 10 Feb.