“Marvin you’re so Thicke headed”

Copyright.

Copyright pretty much establishes balance with the rights of the artist with the rights of the public and how they interact with the work, whether it’d be using a clip from a film for their own work or using an artist’s song for background music for a youtube tutorial. Copyright laws protect intellectual property created by an artist and under the laws, are able to have the right to control how their work is used subject to exceptions permitted by the law. Violation of these exceptions can result in payment. A big example of this is Robin Thicke and his song “Blurred Lines”

Do you like Robin Thicke? yeah I thought so

But it’s hard to deny that Blurred Lines is quite a catchy track. Then again, catchiness is one word that sums up Marvin Gaye’s discography. Sexual Healing, Let’s Get it on, It Takes Two etc the list goes on. The Gaye family filed a lawsuit towards Thicke and Pharrel Williams due to the similarities of these two songs. Eventually leading both Thicke and Williams to pay $7.2m. This has happened to a lot of artists throughout the years, and whilst some are more clear than others in similarity, the protection of one’s work from being stolen is necessary.

Copyright is definitely a much needed presence in today’s age as the growing lack of creativity in modern music, film and literature plays a huge part in how media will evolve through the years, especially with the growth of technologies which allow pretty much anyone who has money to create media.

“There is a fine line between plagiarism and inspiration…you could almost say it is blurred”. I quoted that because I copied it from the top comment of that above video so I don’t get a lawsuit.

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