Yeah, I thought the Marvin Gaye VS Pharrell/Thicke case was weird, since I could hardly hear any similarity. There are many songs I'm aware of that bear far more blatant similarity with others than those two songs and where the artist of the older song is not credited, however I doubt most artists are as litigious in this aspect as Gaye's estate was.
Another good court case example would be Bitter Sweet Symphony, which sampled a Rolling Stones song that I also hear only a small similarity with, and yet Jagger and Richards recieved all the royalties as a result of the court verdict, when really I think they should have recieved only about 1/3. That happened 20 years ago, so these cases are nothing new.
Was this recent lawsuit case the reason why a lot of music has become really dreary sounding in the last couple of years, because artists are now afraid to use any decent melodies, or in some cases prohibited from doing so, in case they trigger a lawsuit by anoter artist?
