Readers React: Advice for Robin Thicke: Cite Mozart, not Marvin Gaye, as your inspiration

To the editor: As a lawyer, I’ll offer some (free) legal advice for Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, who were found by a jury to have copied Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” for their 2013 hit “Blurred Lines”: (“Ruling that ‘Blurred Lines’ copied Marvin Gaye song rocks music world,” March 10)

Next time you are asked about your musical inspirations, limit your answer to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. You can also say that if any of them think you infringed their works, you will (gladly) see them in court.

Michael Bruce Abelson, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Thicke and Williams should be made to give all their profits, not part of their profits, to the Gaye family since they were found to have stolen one of his songs.

Thicke and Williams don’t deserve any of the money they made from “Blurred Lines.”

David Zasloff, Burbank

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To the editor: It’s more than ironic that this lawsuit was over a song called “Blurred Lines.”

William P. Bekkala, West Hollywood

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To the editor: As a professional musician, I have noticed that missing from most discussions of the two songs is any mention of the drum part. Although the chords are similar, the drum track is nearly identical.

Beyond that, the use of a Fender Rhodes electric piano as the bass part shows that you can still steal a song while “drunk and high,” as Thicke claims to have been while recording his song.

Jon Hartmann, Los Angeles

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