The Blurred Lines Of Copyright Law: Robin Thicke V. Marvin Gaye's Estate

Submitted By AlexWong3
Words: 516
Pages: 3

Wenjian Huang
Mrs. Schulze
English IV – 1st Period
5 September, 2013
Article 1.1 response I had listened to plenty of great songs in this summer, especially one that I still can't get rid of it in my head. It is the hit summer single "Blurred Lines", its brisk melody wins the favor of many people. I'm the one of the people. This song just makes me feel how summer feels like. Once by chance, my English teacher let us read about an article "The Blurred Lines of Copyright Law: Robin Thicke v. Marvin Gaye's Estate", it is about a suitcase regard to the song "Blurred Lines". I am very interest about what is going on with that such a great song. After I read through that article, author Oliver Herzfeld tells us that the Gaye's family and Bridgeport Music were claiming that Robin Thicke was infringe their copyright because the similarities between their songs, also the other question is could they held liable if their song were influenced by someone else. I think this suitcase is so unnecessary, because if your song can impact others come up with another great song, it is like the continuation of your song, so why is necessary to argue with the copyright. According to the article, "The key question of the lawsuit is: could the composers be held liable for copyright infringement if they were influenced and inspired by Marvin Gaye's and Funkadelic's prior works, but did not actually sample such prior works or otherwise literally copy any of Marvin Gaye's or Funkadelic's music or lyrics?" Surprisingly, the answer is:"it depends."" (Herzfeld). This clearly shows that there is no specific law to deal with this kind of situation. In the article, it had mention about the two-prong test, which is a test to determine copyright infringement. It has two points: "1. Copying of a prior work; 2. A substantially similarity to the prior work sufficient to constitute improper appropriation" (Herzfeld). I had listened to those three songs; I just can say the opening of the songs were kind of similar,