Blurred line? … Robin Thicke and Marvin Gaye. Photograph: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for GQ/Everett Collection/Rex Features
Marvin Gaye's children have responded to a Robin Thicke lawsuit, which claimed that aspects of Blurred Lines weren't stolen from the soul singer's 1977 hit Got to Give It Up, and have launched a series of additional counterclaims against the singer and EMI.
As well as alleging that Thicke committed copyright infringement on his No 1 hit, the family now claims that Thicke's "Marvin Gaye fixation" extends to more songs, according to new legal papers obtained by the Hollywood Reporter. The papers, which were filed this week, suggest that Robin Thicke used After the Dance to inspire the creation of Love After War and that the song Make U Love Me features "a similar bridge and identical lyrics [to] Marvin Gaye's I Want You".
His family has also turned its attention to EMI – which is owned by Sony/ATV Music Publishing – by proposing the penalty that EMI loses all profits on the multimillion-selling single Blurred Lines and that the family gains rights to administer the song catalogue of Gaye. "This conflict has resulted in EMI's intentional decision to align themselves with the [Blurred Lines] writers, without regard to the harm inflicted upon the rights and interests of the Gaye family, and the legacy of Marvin Gaye," the lawsuit states.
According to the counterclaims, Frankie Gaye and Nona Gaye have accused EMI of breaching a contract by failing to protect Gaye's material, and also by attempting to turn public opinion against the family, trying to intimidate the family against filing for legal action and failing to remain neutral when faced with a conflict of interest.
This new case comes months after the family and Bridgeport Music Inc – which owns the rights to the music of Funkadelic/Parliament – issued an initial threat of a court battle in August. Robin Thicke and producers Pharrell Williams and TI went on to file a pre-emptive suit which asked a Los Angeles judge to declare that Blurred Lines did not infringe on Gaye's 1977 song.
As well as consulting a musicologist in order to dissect the songs' compositional similarities, the Gayes point to pre-litigation interviews given by Thicke to GQ and Billboard to support their case. "Pharrell and I were in the studio and I told him that one of my favourite songs of all time was Marvin Gaye's Got to Give It Up," Thicke told GQ. "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."
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