The court case brought against Robin Thicke by Marvin Gaye’s family over claims that his song Blurred Lines copied Gaye’s Got to Give it Up is due to end on Friday and could well set a dangerous precedence for artists in the future.

The case has been going on for some time and centres around the fact that Gaye’s family believe that the two songs sound far too similar and as such, they are seeking damages from the men behind Blurred Lines; Robin Thicke, Pharrell and TI. Their interest in the alleged similarities between the songs seems to have piqued when they realised that both Thicke and Pharrell made more than $5 million after the 2013 hit became so massive.

There’s no doubt in the fact that artists, or indeed their estates should be able to seek compensation if their work has been plagiarised, otherwise what would be the point of anyone seeking to create original content? The problem arises when licence holders become too liberal with their claims of copyright infringement. Something as tenuous as this claim seems to be little more than opportunist money making and it is harming the music industry. You can’t help but question if the Gayes would have been so quick to shout plagiarism if the song hadn’t made so much money for its creators.

As part of the case, Thicke has played a medley of music in court to prove the obvious; that a lot of songs sound similar without being copies. If you stop and think for a moment how many new songs and pieces of music are created every year, the question becomes how is it more songs don’t sound similar. Song melodies can be simple or complex but at the end of the day, there are only so many chords out there: some minor similarities are going to occur at some point.

How far should a song go before it is considered plagiarism? A song can be heavily influenced by the style and tone of another, as seems to be the case in point here and how similar two songs sound can be subjective but unless a direct sample is taken, it shouldn’t be considered in breach of copyright.