Williams for Students

Case Study CX062.1 Last revised: March 9, 2014 Williams v. Bridgeport Music, Inc. Original author: Justin Ward Marvin Gaye is considered one of the greatest soul musicians of all time. He rose to fame on the Motown record label, where he sang several hits written by Motown’s writing team. Around 1970, Gaye used his popularity to wrest greater creative control from Motown and began producing more personal works, beginning with his 1971 album What’s Going On. The main song at issue in this case, “Got to Give It Up,” was a popular 1977 single and Gaye’s soulful response to the disco trend. Gaye died in 1984. Robin Thicke, born 1977, is an American R&B singer and the son of television actor Alan Thicke (who played Jason Seaver on the series Growing Pains). Thicke began his music career as a teenager; he co-wrote songs for artists like Christina Aguilera starting in the 1990s and released his first solo album in the early 2000s. Throughout Thicke’s recording career, reviewers have noted his indebtedness to past R&B greats and to Gaye in particular. One reviewer said that Thicke has a “fixation” on Gaye; another described a Thicke song as “nothing but Gaye’s pillow-talk falsetto hey-babying its way over a tune that could use some sexual healing.” Marvin Gaye Robin Thicke In 2013, Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (co-written with producer Pharrell Williams and rapper T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, Jr.) became an outrageously successful summer hit. “Blurred Lines” was the first song in Thicke’s career to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also sparked significant controversy. Feminists criticized the song, which prominently features the line “You know you want it,” for trivializing issues of sexual consent. The song’s video, which includes nude female models dancing with Thicke, Williams, and Harris, only strengthened claims that Thicke’s work was degrading to women. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 2014 Justin Ward. This case study was originally written by Justin Ward. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License, the terms of which are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/. Williams v. Bridgeport Music, Inc. CX000.1 In an interview with GQ, Thicke described the creative process behind “Blurred Lines”: 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.” 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. Not long after the interview, members of Gaye’s family contacted Thicke and alleged copyright infringement of “Got to Give It Up.” In response, Thicke filed what in American law is called a “declaratory judgment” case, a special kind of lawsuit filed by someone threatened with litigation so that a court can clarify his rights. In response, the Gaye family brought claims of copyright infringement against Thicke, arguing that “Blurred Lines” infringes “Got to Give It Up” (and that another Thicke song, “Love After War,” infringes Gaye’s “After the Dance”). In addition to pointing to the songs’ noticeable overal similarity, the Gaye family alleged the following specific similarities between “Blurred Lines” and “Got to Give It Up”: 1. Similarity between the “signature phrases” (Gaye: “I used to go out to parties”; Thicke: “And that’s why I’m goin’ take a good girl”). 2. Similarities between “vocal hooks” (Gaye: “Keep on dancin’”; Thicke: “take a good girl”). 3. Use of backup vocals on the main hooks. 4. Similarities between “backup hooks” in “Got to Give It Up” (sung to “dancin’ lady”) and a “core theme” repeated in different parts of “Blurred Lines” (sung to “If you can’t hear,” “And that’s why I’m,” and elsewhere). 5. Similarity between the “dancin’ lady” backup hook in “Got to Give It Up” and the prominent “Hey, hey, hey” background vocals in “Blurred Lines.” 6. Similar basslines. 7. Similar keyboard parts (both songs feature staccato keyboard chords on the offbeats, with a pause at the end of every other measure). 8. Unusual (but not identical) percussion features, including the distinctive use of a cowbell and an open hi-hat on the second half of the fourth beat. 9. Additional “shared departures from convention”: a. Lack of a guitar track. b. Party noises in the background. c. Male falsetto. Video Please watch the video at the following URL: https://forums.copyx.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=673. Discussion Questions 1. Under which, if any, of the tests for substantial similarity is “Blurred Lines” substantially similar to “Give It Up”? 2. Which of the tests for substantial similarity is best? 2 of 3 Williams v. Bridgeport Music, Inc. CX000.1 3. Do any of the copyright theories help in deciding how this dispute should be resolved? 3 of 3 .

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