A week after a Los Angeles federal jury awarded the Gaye family almost $7.4 million in the “Blurred Lines” copyright trial, the attorney for Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams has filed paperwork with the court calling the verdict “inconsistent” and expressing his clients’ plan to file a motion for a new trial in the coming weeks.
The Gaye family have also taken issue with the verdict.
Their attorneys have filed a motion asking the court to amend the verdict to include rapper T.I., real name Clifford Harris Jr., and the Interscope Parties (Star Trak Entertainment, Universal Music Distribution, UMG Recordings and Interscope Records), who were not found liable in the initial verdict. That decision found Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and Williams’ publishing company, More Water From Nazareth Publishing Inc., liable for copyright infringement.
“As a matter of law, all members of the distribution chain are liable for copyright infringement, including co-writer of the song ‘Blurred Lines’ Clifford Harris Jr. and the Interscope Parties, who manufactured, licensed, distributed and sold the infringing song, both as a single and as part of the album ‘Blurred Lines,” the filing argues.
Additionally, in a motion filed just before midnight, the Gaye family is seeking an injunction against the further sale of “Blurred Lines.”
The Gaye estate claims that each day the song continues to be sold causes irreparable damage to the family while unjustly enriching the Thicke parties.
The document also states that the Gaye family is not seeking to interminably cease the exploitation of “Blurred Lines,” but instead to negotiate an agreement with Thicke and Williams “for proper attribution of Marvin Gaye as a writer of ‘Blurred Lines’ and for the use of ‘Got To Give It Up’ in the infringing work so that the Gayes may share in the copyright and all future proceeds of ‘Blurred Lines.’”
The document further states that the Interscope Parties must immediately halt the manufacturing, reproducing, selling, distributing and licensing of “Blurred Lines” because they are aware of the verdict and “are also undeniably committing contributory copyright infringement with each sale.”