Biography & Early Wealth Journey

Thicke and Williams owe the Gaye estate $2.8 million jointly. In addition, Thicke has been ordered to pay the separate sum of $1.7 million, while Williams is on the hook for another $357,630. And in some extremely good news for the surviving family of Marvin Gaye, they're also entitled to a whopping fifty percent of any and all future royalties from "Blurred Lines."

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The final decision was reached by a majority of two judges to one, and the dissenting judge Jacqueline Nguyen expressed in her dissent why the verdict has been so controversial, saying that the two songs "differed in melody, harmony and rhythm" and that the decision "strikes a devastating blow to future musicians and composers everywhere." As a result of that blow, you're probably not going to see too many artists behind a hit song give interviews like the one Thicke gave to GQ, in which he talked about how "Got to Give It Up" inspired "Blurred Lines":

Primary Income Streams & Multi-Million Contracts

"I was like, 'Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove.' Then [Williams] started playing a little something and we literally wrote the song in about a half-hour and recorded it."

Now, if an artist was inspired by a particular song from the past, he or she has a real financial incentive to keep quiet about it.

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