A jury awarded Marvin Gaye's children $7.4million on Tuesday after determining singers Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied their father's music to create Blurred Lines, the biggest hit song of 2013.
Marvin Gaye's daughter Nona Gaye wept as the verdict was being read and was hugged by her attorney, Richard Busch.
The verdict could tarnish the legacy of Williams, a reliable hit-maker who has won Grammy Awards and appears on NBC's music competition show The Voice.
It was previously revealed that the song had made a staggering $16million for Pharrell, Thicke, rapper T.I. and the record company, though T.I. and various record and music companies had previously been cleared of copyright infringement charges.
The jury decided that the family should receive $4million in damages, and $3.4 million in profits from the song.
An attorney for Thicke and Pharrell has said a decision in favor of Gaye's heirs could have a chilling effect on musicians who try to emulate an era or another artist's sound.
Pharrell's spokesperson, Amanda Silverman, released a statement following the verdict, saying; 'While we respect the judicial process, we are extremely disappointed in the ruling made today, which sets a horrible precedent for music and creativity going forward.
'Pharrell created Blurred Lines from his heart, mind and soul and the song was not taken from anyone or anywhere else. We are reviewing the decision, considering our options and you will hear more from us soon about this matter.'
'Right now, I feel free,' an emotional Nona said after the verdict.
'Free from ... Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke's chains and what they tried to keep on us and the lies that were told.'
This was no doubt in response to the fact that Pharrell and Thicke had filed a lawsuit against Gaye's estate back in August 2013 in an attempt to stop his family from suing them for copyright infringement.
'Plaintiffs, who have the utmost respect for and admiration of Marvin Gaye, Funkadelic and their musical legacies, reluctantly file this action in the face of multiple adverse claims from alleged successors in interest to those artists. Defendants continue to insist that plaintiffs' massively successful composition, 'Blurred Lines,' copies 'their' compositions,' read the suit.
This suit however was thrown out in October of that year, when a judge ruled that the family had made a sufficient showing that the two songs were similar.
The Gayes' lawyer branded Pharrell and Thicke liars who went beyond trying to emulate the sound of Gaye's late-1970s music and copied the R&B legend's hit Got to Give It Up outright.
He also brought up the fact after the verdict that the defence's legal team did everything they could to stop the jury from hearing Gaye's song during the proceedings, allowing them to just listen to certain snippets of the music.
For this reason the infringement charge only applied to the sheet music for the two songs, making the case against Thicke and Pharrell that much more difficult for the Gaye family.
Busch however pointed out during his argument that Thicke said in interviews while promoting the single that he and Pharrell were trying to write something like Gaye's Got to Give It Up.
Thicke told jurors he didn't write Blurred Lines, which Pharrell testified he crafted in about an hour in mid-2012, as he was too high on painkillers and alcohol.
'The biggest hit of my career was written by somebody else, and I was jealous and wanted credit,' said Thicke.
Pharrell told jurors that Gaye's music was part of the soundtrack of his youth, but the seven-time Grammy winner said he didn't use any of it to create Blurred Lines and that the songs were alike in genre only.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the song brought in $5.6 million for Thicke, $5.2 million for Pharrell and another $5 million to $6 million for the record company, as well as an additional $8 million in publishing revenue
Gaye's children - Nona, Frankie and Marvin Gaye III - sued the singers in 2013 and were present when the verdict was read.
The family had initially asked for $40million in damages, but later lowered that number to $25million.
This was based on the amount of money they believed Gaye would have been paid had he signed off on the rights away to his song.
Sales of the 2013 song are still going strong too, seeing a drastic increase over the course of the trial this past few weeks.
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