Judge lessens ’Blurred Lines’ damages to US$5.3M

A decision was made yesterday by a US federal judge to reduce Marvin Gaye estate’s US$7.3 million win over global #1 Blurred Lines to US$5.3 million.

According to Variety, U.S. District Judge John Kronstadt reduced parts of the eight-member jury’s award judgement. He reduced the damages to the Gaye family to US$4 million from US$3.2 million, and the award of profits from Pharrell Williams to US$357,631 from $1.6 million.

Gaye’s estate and publisher Bridgeport Music initially originally sought $25 million in damages for the copyright infringement of Gaye’s 1977 track Got To Give It Up. The estate cited costs from the publisher (Gaye's songs are published by the now Sony/ATV-owned EMI and Sony ATV manages Thicke's music), from Universal Music’s estimated $6.9m overhead, and profits from the track.

In March the Gaye family sought an injunction to block further sales of the 2013-released track, but yesterday Judge Kronstadt denied the request. However, he did set the royalty rate at 50% of songwriter and publishing revenues.

During the second week of trial over the track in March, accounting statements revealed Blurred Lines made over US$16,675,690 in profits. US$5,658,214 went to Robin Thicke, US$5,153,457 to Pharrell and US$704,774 went to T.I. It was also revealed that Pharrell received US$4.3 million in publishing royalties and US$860,000 in producer royalties.

The Judge also found yesterday that the labels tied to Blurred Lines (Interscope Records and UMG subsidiary Star Trak Entertainment) as well as T.I (Clifford Harris) were liable alongside Pharrell and Robin Thicke. 

A new trial, as previously requested by Thicke and Pharrell’s solicitors, was rejected.