Five years ago, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams finally lost the (musical) lawsuit of the century. Their song, “Blurred Lines,” had been an inescapable summertime hit, a wedding-DJ-standby, and the center of a very Obama-Era debate over whether it was creepy to have a song called “Blurred Lines” in the first place (it was.) Now, it was also found to have violated IP owned by Marvin Gaye’s estate, specifically the classic song “Got To Give It Up”—a brilliant track that VIBED a lot like “Blurred Lines” without sharing much, if any, direct musical DNA. It was a bombshell.
In the years since, the music industry has changed. Songwriters became more cautious, backroom deals were struck, catalogs got bought, and everyone accused Ed Sheeran of stealing their songs. But why was the lawsuit actually decided in favor of Gaye? And what does that tell us about the legal structures that shape modern music? To get a better sense, Saxon and Sam dig into the details of the case, unpacking the epically unmoored nature of modern copyright, the invisible impact of sampling, the music biz negotiations that followed the ruling, and the AI possibilities hurtling at us all. Come to hear us try and remember what 2013 sounded like. Stay for some beautiful—and we mean beautiful—depositions.
Kate Bush is Running Up Those Charts
Independent Labels and Electronic Music with Chal Ravens
Hard Landing: The End of Free Money and The Future of the Music Industry
What Makes a Hit in 2022? (with Andrew Unterberger)
Mike Park of Asian Man Records
New vs. Old Music
Mat Dryhurst and the Case for Crypto in Music (Part 2)
Mat Dryhurst and the Case for Crypto in Music (Part 1)
Bandcamp and Epic Games Get Hitched
Neoliberal Jazz with Dale Chapman
Web 3.Bro with David Turner
Neil Young vs. Spotify
Sync Life (featuring Sebastian Adé)
New Year, Fresh Mailbag
Sparks: This Film Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us
Spotify Wrapped....Wrapped
45 Billion Dollars and Universal‘s IPO
How the iPod Changed Everything with Eamonn Forde
Music‘s Environmental Impact with Kyle Devine
”Getting Signed” and the Ideology of Record Contracts Featuring David Arditi
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Superfancast
Derringer Discoveries - A Music Adventure Podcast
Bandsplain
One Song
Popcast