1.) "The sparse square wave sounding bass line is almost identical in its function to both songs."



okay...

"The motif is that the bass line drops beat 1 of each bar or every other bar, leaves some space, then ad libs a little bit."


yeah... funk records do that.

"This is a recurring theme throughout. Blurred Lines does exactly that, except they change a couple of the chords."

right.
and changing the chords is critical.

the melody of the bass and the chords of the stabs are not the same.
because, it's a different song.




2.) "The use of the cowbell is also a central part of both songs. The only difference in the songs—and in general—is whereas Gaye’s piece is more fluid and less pattern-based, Thicke’s interpretation is rhythmically static and doesn’t really go anywhere."


you cannot copyright a musical instrument.


3.) "They didn’t even try to change the keyboard. The upbeat chord stabs that give the song a slight Reggae feel (or should I say, ReGaye) is central to the character of the tune."


but if i were to write out the keyboard parts for both songs on sheet music, they wouldn't look the same.



4.) "They even codified that background chatter atmosphere Gaye frequently employed in his songs during this period of his work. How you gon’ turn organic party sounds into a cliché?"


you cannot copyright crowd chatter.
do you know how many songs do that?



5.) "The drums are the same: 4-on-the-floor with a snare backbeat on 2 and 4 with the occasional accent on a half-closed sock cymbal."


literally millions of songs have that.


"In short, they dumbed down the hipness of the original and turned Gaye’s classic opus into a fake, Macarena-esque, line dance, limbo party type club anthem."



so he doesn't like the song.
fine.


it's still a different record.