It's been a long while since Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and Clifford Harris (his friends know him as T.I.) filed a lawsuit looking to rule out any suggestions that the trio stole from Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" when recording their own "Blurred Lines," the biggest song of 2013 thus far. The Gaye estate has finally gotten around to filing their countersuit that alleges the exact opposite, and they've included music publisher EMI among their targets.
The EMI detail is actually the juiciest bit of the suit, and not from a strictly financial perspective. The company owns publishing rights to a good deal of the music produced today, including the catalogues of both Gaye and Williams. The company has thus far participated in the debate, on the latter's side. A representative for EMI accused the Gayes of "ruining an incredible song" and preventing it from winning an MTV Video Music Award (note: date rape themes apparently did not prevent it from winning a VMA).
As the company owns both artist's catalogues, the Gayes allege that this presents a legal conflict of interests for EMI. Therefore, the company cannot properly represent both sides, and should turn over all of its holdings related to Gaye over the soul singer's estate. That blow would be a major story by itself, but if a court agrees with the Gaye family that means that the company would be forced to hand over other catalogues during similar lawsuits. That's a lot of money.
The music level of the lawsuit is interesting, but not nearly as relevant. Thicke has already confirmed in interviews that "Give It Up" inspired his track, and has also denied the same claim in other interviews.
