( CNN ) Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams did n't just blur the lines , they crossed them , a California jury ruled this week . Their song `` Blurred Lines '' ripped off the Marvin Gaye soul classic `` Got to Give It Up , '' jurors found , ordering the performers to pay millions for copyright damages and infringement . It 's not the first time singers have turned to the courts to settle an accusation of musical theft . Talk about getting blasted : Thicke and Williams were ordered to pay $ 7.4 million . Their song : . Marvin Gaye 's : . Tom Petty stands his ground : Young British pop sensation Sam Smith 's 2014 tune `` Stay With Me '' has a riff in the chorus similar to that of the 1989 Tom Petty hit `` I Wo n't Back Down . '' Reports say the two settled out of court , and the official credits now list Petty as a co-writer of the Smith song . Petty says there are no hard feelings . Sam Smith 's song : . Tom Petty 's : . Who ya gon na call ? My lawyer ! The 1980s rocker Huey Lewis accused Ray Parker Jr. of copying a `` Ghostbusters '' song riff from the 1984 hit `` I Want a New Drug '' by his band , Huey Lewis and the News . Reports at the time said they settled and signed a confidentiality agreement . In 2001 , Parker accused Lewis of breaking it in a televised interview . The movie theme song : . Huey Lewis and the News : . Ca n't you hear , ca n't you hear the flute riff ? Australian band Men at Work lost a case that all but accused them of stealing from children . A court found that the flute solo in their global hit `` Down Under '' had plagiarized the children 's tune `` Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree , '' written for the Scouting organization the Girl Guides . ( It was the publisher of the song , Larkin Music , that sued . Marion Sinclair , who wrote `` Kookaburra '' in 1934 , died in 1988 . ) Men at Work : . The children 's song : . Yes , there 's a problem . Vanilla Ice hit it big for the first and only time with `` Ice Ice Baby '' in 1990 , rapping over a catchy bass riff that sounded suspiciously like the one in the Queen and David Bowie hit `` Under Pressure . '' Reports at the time said a lawsuit was settled out of court . Vanilla Ice : . Queen and David Bowie 's tune : . Not free to do whatever you want . Some fans of the Beatles spoof band the Rutles noticed what they thought were similarities between the Oasis hit `` Whatever '' and the Neil Innes tune `` How Sweet to be an Idiot . '' Headlines suggested that Innes was going to sue Oasis , but in a 2013 interview , the songwriter said it was the music publisher EMI who took action and settled out of court , giving a quarter of the monies from `` Whatever '' to Innes and a quarter to EMI . Innes later winked at the incident in the opening notes of the song `` Shangri-La . '' Oasis : . Neil Innes , 14 years earlier : . If everybody had their own tune : There 's some controversy about how the Beach Boys ' first big hit , `` Surfin ' U.S.A. , '' came to be written since the melody seems to be lifted straight from the Chuck Berry single `` Sweet Little Sixteen . '' It 's listed now as having been written by the Beach Boys ' Brian Wilson and Berry . On his website , Berry calls `` Surfin ' U.S.A. '' a cover of his tune . The Beach Boys : . Chuck Berry : . Not so fine : One of the most famous copyright disputes in music history targeted former Beatle George Harrison 's song `` My Sweet Lord , '' which was found to have copied `` He 's So Fine '' by the girl group the Chiffons . Harrison was ordered to pay nearly $ 2 million and was quoted as saying he never made any money off the song -- but he struck back with `` This Song , '' a hit about the incident . It included the line : `` As far as I know , it do n't infringe on anyone 's copyright . '' The song that got Harrison sued : . The Chiffons : . And Harrison 's song about the dispute : . CNN 's Todd Baxter , Nick Hunt , Andrew Carey and Tommy Evans contributed to this report .
`` Blurred Lines '' ripped off a Marvin Gaye 'this week classic , jury finds . Sam Smith , Beach Boys and `` Ghostbusters '' tune have all been hit by accusations . George Harrison lost a copyright suit and responded with a song about it .