Robin Thicke, Pharrell Have To Pay $7.3 Million For Plagiarising Marvin Gaye With Blurred Lines

You know you want it, if by ‘you’ you mean the Gaye family, and ‘it’ you mean a lot of money.

A Los Angeles jury has found Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams did indeed plagiarise Marvin Gaye’s 1977 track “Got to Give It Up” when writing “Blurred Lines” in 2013.

According to Variety, Thicke and Williams will have to pay Gaye’s family US$7.3 million in damages.

It could be worse. The Gayes initially wanted US$25 million.

Still, this is a massive backfire for Team Thicke, who preemptively sued the Gaye estate after they threatened legal action (again, inspired by direct interview quotes by Thicke, who boasted about ripping off “Got to Give It Up”).

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this bizarre trial – which featured Thicke performing a piano medley for the jury, mind you – was the emergence of the financial details behind the making of a modern hit song.

According to testimony, captured by The Hollywood Reporter, “Blurred Lines” grossed $16,675,690, with US$5,658,214 going to Thicke, US$5,153,457 going to Williams, US$704,774 going to guest rapper T.I., and the rest going to the record companies.

The overhead costs of the song, however, came to US$6.9 million.

Anyway, this is a bad time to be Robin Thicke. In fact, the more we think about it, there was only one solid month in 2013 when it was good to be Robin Thicke.