As a result of a controversial jury verdict awarding the family of Marvin Gaye a $7.4 million settlement from Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke last week, there’s been more of a global conversation around copyright laws and their impact on creativity than at any other time in recent memory. While there’s a strong chance the decision will be overturned on appeal, many are concerned that it will have a chilling effect on songwriters and musicians until it is struck down, and could potentially create a flood of lawsuits that would have previously seemed too frivolous to pursue.
The topic of plagiarism was already hot since Sam Smith agreed to pay Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne for melodic similarities between Smith’s hit Stay With Me and Petty’s I Won’t Back Down. But in that case, Smith gave Petty and Lynne a writing credit before legal proceedings even started, and Petty went on the record saying he believed it was accidental.
The dispute between the Gaye family and Williams/Thicke has been far more contentious.
Some have drawn similarities between the potential impact of this decision and the effects of the 1991court decision that nailed Biz Markie for sampling Gilbert O’Sullivan, and which dramatically changed the face of hip-hop and house as a result. The implications of that decision were compounded by the notorious 2005 Bridgeport Music vs Dimension Films case, which found that artists could be liable even if a sample was manipulated to the point that it was no longer recognizable. If you’ve ever wondered why so many contemporary hip-hop and EDM songs are based on synths rather than samples now, these cases are a huge part of that cultural shift. (Incidentally, Bridgeport Music was also involved in the Blurred Lines case.)
While those sampling cases set new legal precedents, it’s important to note that this one does not actually change the existing law. The jury may have misinterpreted it, and that may lead to the case being overturned on appeal. But the law as it was originally written remains the same. Still, the decision must give hope to other copyright-holders who have held off on pursuing lawsuits, not to mention the fear it will strike in the hearts of those accused of plagiarism.
According to the law, Marvin Gaye’s Got To Give It Up and Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines should have had some strong melodic, lyrical and rhythmic similarities for Gaye’s estate to have won such a substantial judgment. But the two songs are not nearly as similar as they might sound to an untrained ear. The aspects that make them seem so related have more to do with production touches, tempo and instrument choices, none of which are covered by copyright laws anywhere in the world. Even the guy who played that Coke bottle percussion part on the original Marvin Gaye recording doesn’t see Blurred Lines as a rip-off, saying that you can’t “copyright a groove.”
So what happened here, and why did the jury hear theft where so many others hear only respectful homage? Well, Robin Thicke probably has himself to blame. He passed all blame on to his partner Pharrell Williams and said he was lying out of insecurity when he claimed co-writing credit, and that he was high and drunk during interviews when he talked about taking part in the writing process. Not a great look for any artist, especially when his next album flopped so embarrassingly badly, when he tried to reassert his own creative control. While being a douchebag shouldn’t cause a jury to bend the law, it’s a possibility that’s making more than a few pop stars nervous.
When news of the verdict first broke, it seemed to some like Thicke got what he deserved. But the tenor of the conversation quickly shifted once other musicians took a closer look at the decision. If borrowing a “feel” from another song is plagiarism, that makes most modern music theft, and discounts the rich history of reinterpretation in blues, jazz, country, R&B, hip-hop, folk, disco and so many other non-classical populist forms.
Right now there’s a singer/songwriter in a rehearsal space somewhere in the world trying to describe a groove to his or her rhythm section. It’s natural to cue up examples to demonstrate what they’re looking for. That’s not plagiarism, unless the band is actually copying the notes and rhythms of the examples. Most musicians are terrified of doing that by accident, much less doing it deliberately.
Many songwriters start their musical journey from some variation of inspiration, thinking, “I want to write songs that make me feel like that person’s songs do.” Some may later develop approaches so idiosyncratic that it’s no longer possible to spot their original inspirations, but even those rare unique artists were inspired once upon a time by someone else.
How many hundreds of thousands of songs have been based on alternating between a I chord and a IV chord? Does anyone get to claim the rights to a standard blues shuffle? Or a rocksteady reggae rhythm? As any DJ knows, many songs can be mixed over top of each other and still work melodically, but that connection is almost never deliberate on the part of the composers. The use of party noises and the ad libbed “whoops” in the background of Blurred Lines is likely a deliberate nod to Marvin Gaye, but you could say the same about Detroit house producer Moodymann’s frequent use of the same textures.
To be fair, the specific rhythmic feel of the Marvin Gaye song is relatively unique, combining Latin percussion elements with a disco rock beat and anchored with a lazy synth bass line that owes as much to ska as to funk. The bouncy keys sometimes echo that Caribbean feel, but mostly reinforce the soul backbone of the song. Blurred Lines mixes up many of the same flavours (and adds some more), but approaches the groove and swing of the song from a different angle. Where Gaye’s song is laid-back, Thicke and Williams make the beat feel more insistent and upbeat.
Even if Williams and Thicke deliberately set out to pay homage to Got To Give It Up, it’s not like Marvin Gaye was shy about the same thing. In the lyrics of his song Praise, he specifically admits to lifting from Stevie Wonder when he sings “Stevie, we really dig you/hope you don’t mind this riff from you.” It’s not impossible that Gaye may have borrowed many of the ideas for Got To Give It Up from other musicians as well, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In that spirit, here are 10 other songs that might have a chance at cashing in on similarities to either Blurred Lines or Got To Give It Up:
benjaminb@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto
