http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/10/blurred-lines-pharrell-robin-thicke-copied-marvin-gaye
 
Whether you like the song or not, is it a rip off or just similar? Is a similar vibe enough to be sued over? Is this not how music evolves?

Not hearing any 'rip off' tbh..it's a similar groove, but there are a thousand tracks like that, and the melody in Gaye's song is completely different (and much stronger IMO). 'Blurred Lines' sounds more like Prince to me.
 
I thought Nona Gaye's reaction outside the court was bizarrely 'emotional', but that's just me, I'm a cynic.

It's easy for a jury to see rich people as somehow deserving to be sued. "They've got so much money, they should give it all away to the rest of us." I'm not saying that's what was in the jury's minds, but it is a cultural idea that has been growing for some time. On one hand, we trip over ourselves to fawn all over the latest celebrity and empty our accounts to buy stuff bearing their name. On the other, we deeply resent them for their wealth and we eagerly anticipate their fall from grace. 
 
People. There's just no excuse. 

I've followed this latest suit for the past week or so. Now I personally could care less whether the Robin Thicke production ever saw the light of day, but as far as I am concerned the Gaye family is just seeking (and apparently got it) some quick cash. The way I view it, even though the two songs have a similar rhythm style, and that song similarity stops at that rhythm groove, they are two distinct songs performed by two distinct performers. Did the Thicke song take any money from Marvin Gaye? Absolutely not. A young audience seeking their own identities and sex symbols bought into the Thicke song. No amount of convincing would make these shoppers buy the M. Gaye tune instead. Totally different generations of performer and audience. Maybe the Gaye family should attemp a re-release of his song. In spite of it being a good song, it won't come near the sales today that the Thicke song generated. I just don' t see the theft that is being indicated today in these recent cases.

My opinion is somewhat colored by the fact that Pharrel/Neptunes have a number of sound alike songs that seem to be somewhat reverse engineered. The producer begins with a cover band playing a sound alike and then play subtle variations just enough to "blur the lines". I have heard dj mixes of the two songs where it is hard to tell which song is which. I think this case has much more teeth than the extortion Tom Petty pulled on Sam Smith, which he even said was likely accidental coincidence. When I heard blurred lines I immediately thought Marvin Gaye and assumed sample. The Sam Smith song did not give me a similar dejavu feeling. Even when i listen now, i hear 4 notes in succession that are common enough that I have no doubt exists in plenty of other songs.
 
The line on intellectual property in general has shifted heavily towards copyright holders in recent decades.  In part I believe it is backlash due to the heyday of heavy sampling. Many have the perception that much pop/RnB/hip-hop relies heavily on it (which hasn't been the trend since the 90's). Excessive rulings have made it not worth it for most artists to bother. Occasionally artists with very deep pockets will put out the dough, but it is rare. For previously heavily sampled artists, this means the income from licensing has dried up considerably and thus they jump on anything even close. I think there is a certain irony that going too far in the other direction has resulted in less income. 

Someone once said "Hey there are only thirteen notes"

Wookiee
Someone once said "Hey there are only thirteen notes"

It wasn't Bapu.

The two songs do not sound particularly alike. That said neither song sounds like it is original, or at least the amount of distinctive music in either song is so sparse that either could be said to sound like dozens, if not hundreds, of songs in the genre. Part of the problem with paring the music to a few notes and a lot of beats is that it all begins to sound very similar to ignorant people like me, and other potential jurors. Asking a juror to make a decision like this is probably worse even than asking a judge to do it. The sympathy factor for the children of the poor deceased pop music legend vs the upstart self-promoting neo-wealthy beneficiaries of his legacy, and the conflicting testimony of paid experts, makes this an unsurprising outcome. Certainly there are songs out there that could more easily have been called infringement, but they probably did not rise to the level of reward for the lawyers that this one did. 
 
The message for anyone writing a popular song in the current era is that if you think it will be a hit, you are probably better off just trashing it, and setting your lyric to something that is clearly in the public domain like Greensleeves or Beautiful Dreamer. But if that version becomes a big hit you are probably still not home free.

I agree with everything you said, but like i said, the producer's track record does make me question whether this is coincidence. 

Wookiee
Someone once said "Hey there are only thirteen notes"

13? A Baker's dozen? 
(See what I did there?)