It is now official. Nona Gaye and Frankie Christian Gaye, to of the children of the late singer Marvin Gaye, have decided to move forward with their lawsuit against Robin Thicke and his hit Blurred Lines, alleging that the song rips off their father’s Got to Give It Up.
Thicke struck the first blow when he went to a California court to try to get protection for Lines, saying that “being reminiscent of a ‘sound’ is not copyright infringement.”
The Gaye family didn’t take kindly to the preemptive move and have upped the ante, saying that not only does Lines infringe on Give It Up’s copyrights, but so does Thicke’s Love After War, citing a similarity to Gaye’s After the Dance. The Hollywood reporter says that the legal papers may also name other examples of Thicke’s “Marvin Gaye fixation.”
Along with Thicke, the Gaye’s are also going after EMI April, the publishers of Marvin’s music, saying that they have failed to protect the singer’s copyrights. EMI entities control both Blurred Lines and Got to Give It Up.
The suit supports it claims by referencing interviews done by Thicke where he talks about his love of Gaye, including one where he said “Pharrell and I were in the studio and I told him that one of my favorite songs of all time was Marvin Gaye’s Got to Give it Up. I was like, ‘Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove.’”
Read more at VVN Music
