The old quote ‘Good artists borrow; great artists steal’ doesn’t seem to work in the case of ‘Blurred Lines.’ Jury has ordered Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke to pay as much as $7.4 million. The California-based jury gave a strong message to all the artists who believe in the above-stated quote.
The verdict reached courtroom after eight days of trial testimony. It was conducted to examine if ‘Blurred Lines’ was drawn from ‘Got to Give It Up,’ a beautiful song of Marvin Gaye that was released in 1977. If market statistics is taken into consideration, then there is hardly any song, which can beat ‘Blurred Lines’ in the modern era. Both Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke have earned uncountable wishes and blessings for coming out with a song like this, but things have suddenly changed after this verdict hit the courtroom. It claims that a major part of their song was drawn from the previous century’s hit ‘Got to Give It Up.’
As the issue caught media’s attention, the authorities decided to assign this matter to a jury in order to resolve this issue as soon as possible. The jury consisted three men and five women, who heard both the parties and found Williams and Thicke guilty.
In order to make sure that no other musician ever does it again, the jury has asked both of them to pay $4 million in copyright issues. Apart from this amount, they are asked to pay their profit share also, which is $1.6 million for Williams and $1.8 million for Thicke. Reports claim that both of them have managed to escape the statutory damages because they didn’t do this willingly.
The song made around $16 million and proved to be one of the best songs that were ever produced in the country. The decision taken by the authorities is a teaching for all those who think that song fragmentation is nothing more than a cake walk.