You had plenty of innovative artists in that list, artists who also technically got "Gayes" and were cool with it because thats how music gets made. The natural progression of this is the death of genre. We may hate trap music, but imagine if every bass heavy beat with hyperactive hi hats had to pay off Lex Luger.

"But trap sucks Reg!" you cry. But think bigger...

Only reason ive seen for the validity of this particular case is we like Gaye because he's a black classic artist and we hatw thicke because he's a white piece of shit. Which is fine valid feeling to have (race aside). But the implication is every 3 chord punk song owes the Ramones cash. Fela needs to pay up James Brown, etc.