Robin Thicke sued by Marvin Gaye's family

Marvin Gaye's three children are suing Robin Thicke, Paula Patton and record company EMI, whom they claim failed to protect their late father's songs and attempted to intimidate the family from pursuing a lawsuit.

Earlier this year, Robin Thicke, T.I. and Pharrell Williams filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against Marvin Gaye's estate to protect their mega hit, "Blurred Lines". They decided to do so after the Gayes claimed that the chart-topping song was a rip-off of the late singer's 1977 track called "Got to Give It Up".

Reuters reports that Gaye's children, Nona Marvisa Gaye and his sons Frankie Christian Gaye and Marvin Gaye III, filed their lawsuit on Wednesday, October 30 in United States District Court in Los Angeles.

The suit contends that Thicke stole their father's "Got to Give It Up", they said in the suit that Thicke's "Love After Wars" is similar in several aspects to their father's song "After the Dance".

Gaye's children also sued EMI, their father's music publisher which is now owned by Sony/ATV that does business with Thicke. They claimed that EMI had failed to protect Gaye's songs and attempted to intimidate the family from pursuing a lawsuit.

"Not only did EMI fail to bring this action, which is necessary to carry out EMI's duties to protect the Gaye Family's copyrights," the Gaye's countersuit states, "EMI attempted to dissuade the Gaye Family from pursuing this action by repeated threats and tactics to intimidate the Gaye Family and its representatives."

The Gayes want EMI to release Marvin Gaye's catalog as well as all profits accumulated from "Blurred Lines".