Pharrell Williams wins back $2m in Blurred Lines case

A judge has cut more than $2m from the damages awarded against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over their hit single Blurred Lines.

US district judge John A. Kronstadt ruled yesterday that the copyright infringement verdict that a jury reached (in our view, rather ridiculously) back in March should be cut because the original reward was not supported by the evidence. The damages to be paid to Marvin Gaye's family have been reduced from $4m to $3.2m, with the portion of profits that Williams has to pay slashed from $1.6m to $358,000.

However, Universal – who released Blurred Lines – will have to pay Gaye's family 50% of all future revenues earned from songwriting and publishing.

The 56-page ruling also rejected Thicke and Williams' lawyer's requests for a new trial, and refused to issue an injunction requested by Gaye's family that would have temporarily blocked sales and performance of the song.

And while jurors found that T.I. did not commit copyright infringment, Kronstadt ruled that he must still be included in the judgement.

"Mr Thicke and Williams, and their legal team, among others, went on a public relations campaign after the jury’s verdict criticising the verdict and saying the evidence did not support the finding of copyright infringement, and did not believe the decision on liability would therefore stand," said Marvin Gaye's family's attorney, "The judge who actually heard all of the evidence disagreed. I am thrilled for the Gaye family, and the thoughtful members of the jury, who had to listen to all of that while remaining silent."

[via The Guardian]