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Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and T.I. are suring Marvin Gaye's family over a dispute regarding 'Blurred Lines' - relating the claims that the No.1 single bares a strong resemblence to Gaye's 'Got To Give It Up' and Funkadelic's 'Sexy Ways'. Listen to all three tracks below.
Gaye’s family and Bridgeport Music, which owns the right to Funkadelic’s music, have argued that 'Blurred Lines' infringes copyright, and have threatened the trio with a lawsuit. As a result, The Hollywood Reporter now claims that Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I. have sought to preempt a possible lawsuit by filing one of their own against Gaye’s family and Bridgeport and suing them.
The lawsuit reads: “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. Defendants continue to insist that plaintiffs’ massively successful composition, ‘Blurred Lines,’ copies ‘their’ compositions,” the suit reads.
“But there are no similarities between plaintiffs’ composition and those the claimants allege they own, other than commonplace musical elements. Plaintiffs created a hit and did it without copying anyone else’s composition.”
Listen to 'Blurred Lines' by Robin Thicke featuring Pharrell and T.I. below:
Listen to 'Got To Give It Up' by Marvin Gaye below:
Listen to 'Sexy Ways' by Funkadelic below:
Back in June in an interview with GQ Magazine, Thicke said that 'Got To Give It Up' was 'one of his favorite songs', saying that he told Pharrell: “‘Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove.’”
He continued: "Then he started playing a little something and we literally wrote the song in about a half hour and recorded it. The whole thing was done in a couple hours—normally, those are the best ones.”
Below: The 10 most bizarre musical lawsuits ever
