This week, a US District judge reduced the $7.4 million award (PDF) that a jury granted to Marvin Gaye's family in March to $5.3 million. The Gaye family had accused pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, as well as rapper T.I., of copyright infringement with their 2013 song “Blurred Lines,” which the Gaye family said sounded too much like Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit “Got to Give it Up.”

The jury's March verdict awarded $4 million to the Gaye family in damages as well as a calculation of the profits that Williams and Thicke made from the song—the jury decided that this amounted to $1,610,455.31 from Williams and $1,768,191.88 from Thicke.

This week, Judge Kronstadt ruled that Williams' share of the damages was unfair, however, because Williams' share of the producer royalties from “Blurred Lines” was only $860,333 (though Williams cleared upward of $4.2 million in publishing revenue from the song). “This award was excessive,” the judge wrote. “It reflects a profits-to-damages ratio of 187 percent, which is approximately 4.7 times greater than the 40 percent ratio that was used in the calculation of damages as to Thicke’s profits.”

The amount that Thicke owes to the Gaye family remains unchanged.

In the weeks after the jury trial, the family of Marvin Gaye also asked Kronstadt to block all sales and performances of “Blurred Lines” as their lawyers negotiated royalties. This week, the judge denied that request, but he said that the Gaye family would be entitled to 50 percent of all the profits made from the song in the future.

The judge also dealt a blow to T.I., who the jury had ruled was not liable for any copyright infringement on “Blurred Lines.” Kronstadt said that this ruling was “plainly erroneous” and that T.I. was partially responsible for the song's infringement.

The lawsuit has been closely watched because at its center is the question: when does being influenced by an artist turn into copyright infringement?

In a comment to Reuters, Howard King, a lawyer for Pharrell, Thicke, and T.I., said, “For the benefit of the entire songwriting community, we will pursue all remedies to correct this decision.” Richard Busch, the attorney for the Gaye family, said that his clients were happy with most of the judge's decisions "but is reviewing its options on the trimming of damages," according to Reuters.