If the “Blurred Lines” lawsuit has taught us anything it is: you better give musicians credit if they even remotely contribute to a song to prevent a costly copyright infringement battle. In order to avoid such an ordeal, Bruno Mars has now given writing credits to a whopping eleven musicians on his latest hit, “Uptown Funk”.

The “Blurred Lines” trial became big news in the music industry; in August 2013, Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and T.I. preemptively sued the estate of Marvin Gaye and Gaye’s estate fired back with a lawsuit of its own over the song “Blurred Lines”. Specifically, the Gayes asserted that “Blurred Lines” “sounds” and “feels” just like Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up”. The dispute went all the way to trial and the jury determined that “Blurred Lines” was infringement of “Got to Give it Up” and awarded $7.3 million for the infringement. The decision is on appeal and you can read more about our coverage here.

After the writers of the song, “Oops Upside Your Head” submitted a copyright infringement takedown notice to YouTube over Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk”, Mars decided to give credit to the authors of the song. Originally credited with six songwriters,”Uptown Funk” now credits eleven. Hey, I hope I get my credit one day too. The manager for one of the originally credited authors claims that people are trying to be careful and avoid copyright infringement battles in the future….like the “Blurred Lines” trial.

You can listen to “Oops Upside Your Head” here and it definitely sounds similar to parts of “Uptown Funk”. Seems like Mars made the right decision here but raises the question why the writers weren’t credited in the first place.

