Throughout the music industry, Marvin Gaye is one of the most revered and highly respected singers and songwriters, consistently listed as an important and formative influence on countless artists to this very day.
His family, however, probably don’t command as much respect. They more or less alienated the music community following the controversial lawsuit they brought against Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke for their 2013 hit ‘Blurred Lines’.
You probably know about the case already, but for those who don’t, Gaye’s kids took Williams and Thicke to court alleging ‘Blurred Lines’ had ripped off Marvin Gaye’s 1977 hit ‘Got to Give It Up’, though the similarities were contentious.
A California federal jury ultimately decided in favour of the Gaye estate and many in the industry were upset with how the copyright trial of the decade was settled, since the only element Williams had allegedly lifted from Gaye was the ‘vibe’.
A series of back-and-forth legal battles ensued in the aftermath of the decision, with Gaye’s estate at one point requesting sales of the track be stopped, and for a while there the public was totally confused by the situation.
One thing was for sure, though: pretty much everybody was on whichever side Gaye’s family wasn’t. They’ve now given the creative industry even more reason to dislike them and view them as a band of money-hungry frivolous litigators.
According to a recent report by tabloid outlet TMZ, Marvin Gaye’s son, Marvin Gaye III, is in the process of suing the creators of the popular Fox series Empire, which tells the tale of a family-run music business.
Apparently, Gaye claimed to have come up with the series’ plot over five years ago, registering a treatment for a show called Diamonds & Ballads, based on the families of Gaye and Motown founder Berry Gordy, with the Writers Guild of America in 2010.
However, Gaye’s lawyer has now told Rolling Stone that the report is false and he is not currently pursuing a lawsuit against Empire‘s creators – keyword being ‘currently’. “My client has not filed a lawsuit regarding the Empire series,” said Paul Philips.
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“Right now, Marvin’s interests and our efforts remain focused on the ‘Blurred Lines’ case and on seeing that through to its conclusion. We will address the TMZ report and the Empire matter at the appropriate time.”
Right, so he’s not suing them right now, but he’ll get to it after he’s finished bleeding money out of a lawsuit that just about everyone in the music business agrees could be potentially devastating for the industry.
While we obviously don’t know the details of Gaye’s case against the creators of Empire, if it’s anything like their case against ‘Blurred Lines’, we’re already feeling pretty cynical about where this is gonna go.
