Marvin Gaye’s Family Now Wants Money From T.I., Too
Hey, remember that part in “Got To Give It Up” where Marvin Gaye sang that he would never pull a Pharcyde and let you pass him by? Or that your last guy doesn’t smack your ass and pull your hair like that? No? That’s because they didn’t happen. Last week, a jury awarded Marvin Gaye’s heirs a scary $7.3 million, ruling that “Blurred Lines” songwriters Robin Thicke and Pharrell had taken too much from Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up.” But they didn’t hold guest rapper T.I. responsible for any of that, finding that T.I.’s rap verse had nothing to do with anything Marvin Gaye ever did. But the Gaye family isn’t satisfied with that. They want money from T.I., too, and they might not be happy until they’ve got his Louis knapsack, where he’s keeping all the work at.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, lawyers for the Gaye family have filed motions to “correct” the jury’s decision, holding more parties responsible for any “Blurred Lines” infringement that might’ve happened. They want to hold T.I. accountable, and they also want to add the record labels Universal, Interscope, and Star Trak to the list of infringers.
The Gaye family only owns Marvin’s sheet music, not the rights to his actual recordings, and that’s why the jury decided that the “Blurred Lines” songwriters would be held accountable but that the distributors would not be. But the Gaye family claims that “by virtue of their participation in the creation, manufacture and distribution” of “Blurred Lines,” all those other parties need to cough up money, as well. The Gayes are also seeking an injunction preventing those labels from further distributing “Blurred Lines,” and they’re even looking for an “impoundment” of all existing copies of the song.