The Gaye estate won. In 2018, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a jury verdict finding that “Blurred Lines” infringed the copyright in “Got to Give It Up.” The jury had awarded $7.4 million in damages. The court reduced that to approximately $5.3 million. Pharrell Williams, Robin Thicke, and T.I. lost.

The case sits at the center of a years-long argument about whether copyright law now protects musical style. That argument is legitimate. But to follow it accurately, you have to start with a fact the popular discussion usually omits: the jury was not comparing “Blurred Lines” to the Marvin Gaye recording. They were comparing it to a sheet music deposit filed with the Copyright Office in 1977.

That distinction is not a technicality. It is the forensic center of the case.

The deposit copy rule and what it actually means

Copyright protection for musical compositions registered before 1978 attaches to what was deposited with the Copyright Office, typically a lead sheet or piano-vocal score. Not the record. Not the production. Not the feel you hear when you press play. The groove of “Got to Give It Up” — the syncopated drums, the interplay between bass and rhythm guitar, the particular rhythmic lilt of the performance — lives in the sound recording, not in the sheet music deposit.

The deposit copy rule required the jury to filter all of that out. Their comparison was supposed to be sheet music to sheet music: what did Marvin Gaye deposit in 1977, and did “Blurred Lines” copy the protected expression in that document?

The jury found substantial similarity. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. But Judge Nguyen dissented and made the case that the majority effectively permitted the jury to protect a genre feel rather than specific expression from the deposit. Her dissent is not fringe. It reflects what many forensic musicologists and practitioners said publicly after the verdict: that the comparison the jury actually made was grounded in the sound recording experience, not in the thin sheet music.

I cannot say the jury was wrong as a factual matter — I was not there, and the trial record is long. What I can say is that the quality of expert analysis at trial is directly relevant to how the jury understood its instructions. If the expert testimony did not rigorously separate what the deposit copy shows from what the recording sounds like, that gap almost certainly shaped the verdict. That is a forensic problem, not just a legal one.

What elements were at issue

The alleged similarities centered on melody fragments, bass line figures, hooks, rhythmic patterns, and overall structural arrangement. None of these elements is individually novel. A descending bass figure, a repeated melodic hook, a particular rhythmic feel — these devices appear across a generation of funk and soul recordings. The Gaye estate’s argument was not that any single element was unique to “Got to Give It Up.” The argument was that the specific selection and arrangement of those elements in combination was protectable expression.

The Ninth Circuit agreed. Selection and arrangement doctrine holds that a composer who combines individually common elements in a distinctive way can protect that combination, even if no single element would qualify for protection on its own. The analogy is to compilation copyright: individual facts are not protectable, but a specific selection and organization of facts can be.

That holding has real consequences for working musicians. It means that borrowing a cluster of stylistic devices from an earlier song — not any single identifiable melody, but a pattern of choices — can constitute infringement even when each individual choice is freely available. Artists who work in stylistic dialogue with their influences, which is most artists, face genuine uncertainty after this case.

The inverse-ratio rule and why it no longer applies

At trial, the jury was also instructed on the inverse-ratio rule: when the defendant’s access to the plaintiff’s work is high, the degree of similarity required to prove infringement is lower. Access to “Got to Give It Up” was obviously high. Marvin Gaye’s work is ubiquitous. So the bar for similarity was lowered.

That rule is gone. Two years after Williams v. Gaye, the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc in Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin eliminated the inverse-ratio rule entirely. The court held that access does not and should not lower the similarity threshold. Williams v. Gaye stands as one of the last significant cases in which the rule operated. Any reading of Blurred Lines that treats the inverse-ratio rule as live law is reading the wrong edition.

Why this case still matters

Williams v. Gaye did not establish clean doctrine. It affirmed a jury verdict that many legal scholars and musicologists found troubling, in a circuit that has since tightened its standards significantly. But it matters because it is the case that changed industry behavior. After 2018, clearance practices shifted. Music supervisors became more cautious. Artists and labels began seeking licenses or opinions on works that previously would not have triggered concern.

The case created a chilling effect that the subsequent course correction in Skidmore and Gray v. Perry has only partially addressed. For anyone asking whether they can write in the style of an earlier work, Williams v. Gaye is the cautionary story. Skidmore and Gray are the partial reassurance. The full picture requires reading all three together.

From a forensic musicology standpoint, this case is a lesson in the cost of letting the aural impression of a sound recording drive a comparison that the law confines to sheet music. The expert who can hold that distinction clearly — can demonstrate exactly what the deposit copy shows and does not show, and limit the similarity analysis accordingly — is the expert who serves the court most accurately. That is the work.

The musical analysis is mine. Legal advice is your attorney’s.