The plot thickens in the battle of Robin Thicke vs. Robin Thicke's sonic forefathers. Billboard reports Thicke initially offered Marvin Gaye's family a six-figure settlement out-of-court to squash accusations that "Blurred Lines" is a blatant ripoff of "Got to Give It Up". "According to sources knowledgeable with the lawsuit," Gaye's family turned him down, prompting Thicke to file the preemptive lawsuit that was reported last week.

Which could mean that Gaye's family might believe they have a strong enough case that they could get more than six figures in a future lawsuit.

This week, in an interview with TMZ, Gaye's son Marvin Gaye III seemed to indicate likely plans to sue Thicke back. "We’re not happy with the way that he went about doing business, let alone suing us over something where he clearly got his inspiration from at the least," Gaye III said.

Billboard points out this quote from a GQ interview in which Thicke explains the making of "Blurred Lines":

"Pharrell and I were in the studio and I told him that one of my favorite songs of all time was Marvin Gaye's 'Got to Give It Up.' I was like, 'Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove.' Then he started playing a little something and we literally wrote the song in about a half hour and recorded it. The whole thing was done in a couple hours."

In the suit filed by Thicke last week-- which also addresses separate plagiarism claims from Funkadelic's camp-- Thicke claims that, "being reminiscent of a 'sound' is not copyright infringement. The intent in producing 'Blurred Lines' was to evoke an era." The lines between copyright infringement and evocation are blurred, if you will.