Ed Sheeran’s copyright lawsuit

Ed Sheeran’s latest copyright lawsuit adds to the trend of infringement cases in pop music.

Transcript

00:00Ed Sheeran has found himself embroiled in another copyright trial, but we need to talk about how

00:04Arisen infringement lawsuits have impacted the pop music industry. Sheeran has been accused of

00:09copying his song Thinking Out Loud from Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On. The lawsuit was filed

00:13in 2017 by the heirs of Gaye's co-writer for quote striking similarities in chord progressions

00:18that violate their copyright. Sheeran's lawyers however argue the similar chords are generic and

00:23fair game for any musician. In 2016 Sheeran was sued for copying aspects of his song Photograph

00:28which resulted in the plaintiffs being added to the credits of the song and last year Sheeran won

00:32an infringement case involving his song Shape of You, but the singer said the rise in cases is

00:37quote really damaging to the songwriting industry. There's only so many notes and very few chords

00:41used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on

00:46Spotify. There's 22 million songs a year and there's only 12 notes that are available. The

00:51trend of infringement lawsuits in pop music seems to start in 2015 when it was determined that Robin

00:56and Pharrell Williams blurred lines infringed on another Marvin Gaye song Gotta Give It Up.

01:00They paid over 5 million dollars in damages but many legal experts and musicians believe the two

01:04were being penalized for using basic music building blocks that were long considered part

01:08of the public domain. A string of other music copyright cases followed including ones for

01:12Taylor Swift's Shake It Off in 2017, Lana Del Rey's Get Free and Led Zeppelin's Stairway to

01:17Heaven. Legal scholars say if Sheeran loses it could muddy the commonly understood rules of what

01:21aspects of music can be owned by a songwriter and what is free for any musician to use.