Howard King, the attorney who represented Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams in the "Blurred Lines" case says he will be appealing the verdict. The Hollywood Reporter reports that King will fight the ruling made on Tuesday (March 10) that his clients must pay over $7 million to Marvin Gaye's family for infringing copyright. Thicke and Williams were found guilty of plagiarizing their 2013 hit song “Blurred Lines” from the Gaye’s 1977 track “Got to Give It Up.” Reps for Pharrell, Robin and T.I. issued a statement explaining that the decision "sets a horrible precedent for music and creativity going forward."

King was on Fox Business Network explaining why they are appealing the verdict.

"We owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn’t stand,” King said. "We are going to exercise every post-trial remedy we have to make sure this verdict does not stand. ... Just because eight people think two songs are similar doesn't mean they are. I think this is a horrible decision that is going to affect whether or not record labels provide the necessary funds for new music to be created."

Watch the full interview with King below.


Richard Busch, Marvin Gaye family attorney, wrote a opinion pieces for Billboard about how he won the case and the disadvantages he faced. Read an excerpt from the story below.

"After Mr. Thicke and Williams filed the lawsuit, it was our opinion that Pharrell Williams and his lawyer Howard King wanted to litigate this in the press by continually saying that all they did was take a feeling. And if they did any copying, it was only a genre. We didn't view it like this at all. Yes, it involved a big, popular song, but this was a straight-up copyright claim over compositional elements that we believed had been taken.

That's not to say we weren't handicapped. In fact, we tried this case with one-and-a-half arms tied behind our back thanks to the judge's ruling to not allow the full Gaye recording to be played to the jury. The court held that our claim was limited to elements found on the lead sheet deposited with the Copyright Office, and had we lost, there certainly would have been an appeal. But we were able to overcome the disadvantage by preparing excerpts from the recording of what the court found to be arguably protected and have it compared to excerpts from "Blurred Lines." In the end, this focused the jury on the music and allowed for a good comparison"

Read the full piece here.

Related: Pharrell and Robin Thicke Have to Pay the Gaye Estate $7.3 Million For “Blurred Lines” Plagiarism
Pharrell, Robin Thicke and T.I.’s ‘Blurred Lines’ Made $16 Million

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