Detecting Music Plagiarism, After the 'Blurred Lines' Case

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Last week, a Los Angeles jury found that the pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 song "Got to Give it Up" in their song "Blurred Lines." The jury awarded the singer's estate $7.4 million. Gaye’s family celebrated the decision. But a lot of composers wondered if copyright is now being extended to cover not just song lyrics and melody but much else – tone, rhythm, tempo.

On this week's episode, Naomi Lewin speaks with two experts about the case's implications: Mark Swed, the classical music critic of the Los Angeles Times, and Lawrence Ferrara, a professor of music at New York University. He's also a music copyright consultant for record labels, music publishing companies and film studios, and was briefly involved in the "Blurred Lines" case.

Segment Highlights

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Our guests have vastly different takes on the case's implications. For Swed, "the tradition in music, in most musical traditions, is to build one thing on another. Rhythmic patterns, bass lines, and things like this are generally thought of as common property." Besides, Renaissance composers such as Josquin des Prez frequently built "paraphrase" or "parody" masses on preexisting Gregorian chants. J.S. Bach lifted entire from Vivaldi. Debussy quoted Wagner's "Tristan" chord.

"Everything is very vague and nobody is quite sure how this is all going to work out," said Swed, who recently wrote about the case. "Music works in a different way than the courts work. The arts are often about breaking rules and the courts are about maintaining rules."

Robin Thicke (L) and T.I. perform the song 'Blurred Lines' at the The Grammy Nominations Concert Live.
(Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

Ferrara, however, believes that the rules around copyright enforcement are clear. "One can always find works with similarities," he said, but the "feel and vibe" of a composition cannot be monopolized by one composer. "Melody tends to be the meat in a copyright issue. That's what gets you at the musical expression that's ultimately the test of whether there's ultimately been an infringement."

Listen to the full segment at the top of this page and tell us what you think below: Is plagiarism a problem in music? Should copyright laws be more or less strictly enforced?