ForumGarden

A jury awarded Marvin Gaye’s children nearly $7.4m on Tuesday after determining singers Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied their father’s music to create Blurred Lines, the biggest hit song of 2013.

What do you think ?

I have three different opinions about this. On the one hand, they do sound alike. Whether they copied it intentionally, or on accident, it is probably copyright violation.

On the other hand, there are only so many musical combinations of chords and notes and I read once that every single on of them has been used many times over. It may actually not be possible not to copy something, somewhere any time a new song is made. This could seriously stifle new artists.

and on the the third hand....who the hell cares? Everything in the world that is digital is ripped off constantly to the point where trying to stifle it is like trying to hold back a cruise ship with fishing line.

Well, from what I can hear, the beat is pretty much the same, but "melody" is a bit different, and I regret even listening to the Thicke one.

If I was the Gaye family, I am not sure I would want to even be associated with that crap.

I think I'm happy just because I hated the thick song from the moment I heard it -

With all the 'sampling' that goes on these days, I wonder if they had given some sort of recognition to the Gaye version whether they would have got away with it ?

The syncopation or rhythm is very similar, but that, I suspect could be said of a lot of different music.

The way people are these days, now when people hear that thing on the radio, they will think of Marvin Gaye. and before long, many will think he wrote it.

Saint_;1475740 wrote: [T]here are only so many musical combinations of chords and notes and I read once that every single on of them has been used many times over. It may actually not be possible not to copy something, somewhere any time a new song is made. This could seriously stifle new artists.Poster Saint... is correct. In Western music, EVERYTHING from the great classics to Rock and Roll uses the same twelve semitones. Amazing but true!

As a kid, one of the first 45's I purchased with my own money (I already had lots of 78's that my parents had purchased for me) was Johnny Cash's "Train of Love". Several years later, I purchased Buddy Knox's "Storm Clouds". Over half a century later, I still have both of the 45's.

Both these recordings are available for listening on YouTube. Apart from the bridges, the tunes are amazingly similar, to my ear much more so than the tunes of the Thicke-Gaye controversy.

I don't recall having heard of any litigation over the similarities of the earlier melodies.

I could probably come up with several other examples from that era.

But then at that time recorded music was merely a multi-million rather than a multi-billion dollar business.

I can hear the similarities between the Gaye and Thicke songs, but the 'My sweet Lord' and 'He's so fine' a few years ago went right over my head.

The Johnny Cash song is blocked in the UK due to copyright grounds.

Bruv;1475738 wrote:

What do you think ?




To my ear these are two different songs.

Lenn;1476130 wrote: To my ear these are two different songs.
It was not the recording we are all seeing and hearing, but rather the sheet music that was challenged.