Will The $7.3 Million “Blurred Lines” Verdict Kill Songwriting As We Know It?

The jury awarded the estate of Marvin Gaye more than $7 million today in a copyright infringement decision against artist Robin Thicke and songwriters Pharrell Williams and T.I. over their huge 2013 hit “Blurred Lines.” The jury decided that the song was just too similar to Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got To Give It Up” to be a coincidence, even thought that’s probably exactly what it was.

This is just another example of the blurred line (pun intended) between a copy and an influence that permeates not only modern music, but just about any creative endeavor. 

We’re all influenced by the art and/or craft that we love, and that influence seeps into our every creation whether we like it or not. Sometimes in music it’s totally obvious (the famous George Harrison “My Sweet Lord” vs. “He’s So Fine” by The Chiffons lawsuit), and other times its less so (Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” vs. Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down”), but with only 12 notes and a limited number of chord progressions that are pleasing to the Western ear, one might think that it’s surprising that there aren’t more lawsuits for copyright infringement than there already are.

Take the blues, for instance. Pick just about any blues album and you’ll find that not only does each song liberally borrow from countless blues songs by countless blues artists before, but even from songs on the same album. 12 bar blues is that for a reason, and although it’s nice when there’s a variation, you won’t find too many artists messing with a formula that’s worked for 75 years. Do we see any copyright infringement suits there? Read more on Forbes.

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The All Time Most Shazamed Songs

Shazam has been an amazing success, as it provides the answer to the never-ending question, "What's the name of that song?" The app has 100 million monthly users, and recently has attempted to up its game with a relaunch earlier in the month.

Users can now see how many queries that a song has, and can now vote for the next artist to join it's new Hall of Fame (artists must have collected more than 15 million queries). Users can now also stream their Rdio or Spotify playlists through the app as well.

What are the most Shazamed songs of all time? Here we go:

1. "Wake Me Up" by Avicii - 19 million
2. "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke - 18 million
3. "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye - 18 million
4. "Let Her Go" by Passenger - 15 million
5. "Rather Be" by Clean Bandit - 14 million

I guess that means that we have a new metric to worry about besides all the social metrics that have now become common in the industry. That said, the number of Shazam's don't mean a thing unless you have a hit, but the app can be a really helpful if you're an artist trying to break through.

Global Top Sellers Of 2013

The latest IFPI report is out outlining the recording industry's health for 2013. We'll cover the numbers more in depth in a future post, but first let's look at the top global sellers of last year.

Global Top Selling Albums of 2013

	ARTIST	TITLE	TOTAL SALES (M)
1	One Direction	Midnight Memories	4.0
2	Eminem	The Marshall Mathers LP2	3.8
3	Justin Timberlake	The 20/20 Experience	3.6
4	Bruno Mars	Unorthodox Jukebox	3.2
5	Daft Punk	Random Access Memories	3.2
6	Katy Perry	Prism	2.8
7	Michael Bublé	To Be Loved	2.4
8	Imagine Dragons	Night Visions	2.4
9	Lady Gaga	Artpop	2.3
10	Beyoncé	Beyoncé	2.3

Global Top Selling Digital Singles of 2013

	ARTIST	TITLE	TOTAL SALES (M)
1	Robin Thicke	Blurred Lines	14.8
2	Macklemore & Ryan Lewis	Thrift Shop	13.4
3	Avicii	Wake Me Up	11.1
4	P!nk feat. Nate Ruess	Just Give Me A Reason	9.9
5	Katy Perry	Roar	9.9
6	Daft Punk	Get Lucky	9.3
7	Imagine Dragons	Radioactive	8.6
8	Bruno Mars	When I Was Your Man	8.3
9	will.I.Am	Scream & Shout	8.1
10	Rihanna	Stay	7.9

One of the things that sticks out is that the sales numbers for these hits are rather anemic when you consider we're talking world-wide. Also, when you consider the amount of hype that artists like Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce and Daft Punk received, you'd expect the numbers to be much higher.

But that's the music business we live in today, where sales numbers aren't what they once were and probably never will be. That said, I bet if you look at the same artist's YouTube and streaming numbers (which I'll attempt to get), they'd be off the charts.

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Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

Top 10 Played More Than Ever Before

Many of us today think of music life centering around the online world, but that's far from the truth. The fact of the matter is that people still listen to the radio as much as they ever did, and it remains the top way for listeners to discover new music, beating YouTube (the online leader) by a large margin.

That said, the songs that reach the top 40 are played twice as much today than those ten years ago, according to Mediabase, a division of Clear Channel that tracks radio spins for all broadcasters.

For instance, last year's most played song was Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," which aired 749,633 times in 180 markets. That comes out to 2,053 times a day on average.

In 2003 the top song was "When I'm Gone" by 3 Doors Down, which was played 443,160 times during the year, or 1,214 time per day on average.

One of the reasons is that there are a lot more Top 40 stations than there used to be, with about 70 new ones created in the last decade in place of more specialized stations that played rock and smooth jazz (which was once heralded as the next new thing in radio programming).

Even on the country stations, the trend is similar, with the top hit of last year, Darius Rucker's "Wagon Wheel" receiving 229,633 plays. In 2003, Lone Star's "My Front Porch Looking In" received 162,519 spins.

The upshot is that even though people still discover their music from radio, radio has a much tighter playlist overall. It seems to be a case where the 1% of the music industry is profiting more than ever, while the 99% has a harder road to travel yet again.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.