Names and faces

Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” is the song of the summer, spending 10 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s charts and still blaring out of cars and bars from sea to shining sea. Marvin Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got to Give It Up” was a clear inspiration for it, but were Thicke and his songwriting partners merely inspired by Gaye, or did they infringe on the copyright of the earlier song? That is the question at the heart of a lawsuit that Thicke and his co-writers, Pharrell Williams and Clifford Harris Jr. (better known as the rapper T.I.), filed in federal court Thursday against Gaye’s three children. According to the suit, Thicke and his colleagues “reluctantly” went to court in order to protect their song from claims by the Gaye family - apparently made privately - that “Blurred Lines” copies “Got to Give It Up.” Thicke and Williams have spoken about “Got to Give It Up” only as an inspiration for “Blurred Lines.” “Pharrell and I were in the studio and I told him that one of my favorite songs of all time was Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give It Up,’” Thicke said in an interview with GQ. “Blurred Lines” has sold more than 4 million copies in the United States, and its video has been viewed 138 million times on YouTube.

Kanye West won’t face felony charges after being accused of attacking a photographer at Los Angeles International Airport. But he’s not completely off the hook. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Friday that it is declining to prosecute the rapper, but his case will go to the city attorney for possible misdemeanor charges. In the July 19 incident, West scuffled with a member of the paparazzi who had staked out the airport to snap celebrity photos. Videos showed West lunging at a photographer’s camera and trying to wrestle it away. West has had similar run-ins with airport paparazzi in the past.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 08/19/2013

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