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Did you read my post??? If they don't pursue the counterclaim and the initial party (thicke) prevails in his petition for declaratory judgement he would be lawsuit-proof from that copyright. The longer Thicke waits to file the original petition, the more time he is in the dark while the adversary plots.

So what? It was the only thing a lawyer would tell them to do. Hell, claims for declaratory judgement of non-infringement might be as common as initial filing of regular infringement claims.

They weren't "going after the gayes", they filed a claim for declaratory judgement of non-infringement. Basically they asked the court to grant a legally binding order stating that they were not infringing on a certain copyright. When they did so, the gaye estate was then forced to either file a compulsory crossclaim…

No, not only does your argument makes sense, but that's literally what actually happened.

Why is it important to remember that they didn't initially file the suit? When they were sued for declaratory judgement of non-infringement their infringement counterclaim was literally mandatory or else they completely waive their future cause of action

Why do you say the song couldn't be listened to? The particular recording of the song he released couldn't be listened to, because they don't have copyright to that performance… They have a copyright to the sheet music. Thus, a musical performance of JUST the sheet music was used. Of course the jury wasn't expected to…

That's just one of several musical clefs and indicates a very "top-down" learning perspective. I doubt you'd be able to usefully infer anything from sheet music but if that wasn't the case you would understand how much better sheet music is than tabs. Tabs just tell you which frettings to play and then additionally…

Some US lawyers will get this reference so don't give up (it circulates even among non-IASP viewers

Well yeah that's the only way the joke makes sense..

It was the only legally optimal decision to make. A claim for declaratory judgement of non-infringement has a compulsory counterclaim for infringement. If they don't make the initial filing they lose the opportunity to deprive the other party of "home-field" advantage. What about this makes it "the thing"?