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In this video, we discuss the $100 million lawsuit faced by singer Ed Sheeran with his song “Thinking Out Loud”, which the suit alleges borrowed elements from Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On”.
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It makes me think of Weird Al. What did he have to do to use other people's music?
Hey, I'm a drummer for my profession. On the rhythmist perspective, Probubly Me and soooo many others are guilty for using same grooves on and on and on… So, Are we all must be prosecuted for this?! Nah… I don't think so.
No
As an artist, musician and copyright holder, when registering your musical works, the copyright form asks you if your work IS A DERIVATIVE OF ANY OTHER WORK! He should have marked yes, seeing that the rhythm, chord progression, drum beat and instrumentation are musically identical no matter what he's singing over it. I don't think $100 million is fair at all, but he should have acknowledged Ed's contributions somehow…..My opinion.
Until this lawsuit, I didn't even think of Marvin Gaye's song as being similar. I think that speaks for itself even though I am not a musicologist, just a fan of both artisits.
White people have a long history of stealing ..this is nothing new 😂😂😂😂😂
Amy Wadge a woman who is from Wales UK created the 4 chord progression with the anticipated second and fourth chords in the key of D major that is the foundation of "Thinking Out Loud", Sheeran wrote the melody and lyrics about his Grandparents enduring love
over the four chords that Amy created in 2014 in the UK at Sheeran's house. Both the progression and using chord anticipation are general stylistic elements used by many artists. Amy and Ed created the song on an acoustic guitar. Their team referred to it as the Van Morrison song because they saw it as similar in " feel" to "Have I Told You Lately". The jury decided that IN FACT that "Thinking Out Loud" was independently created.
The studio production of the song generally followed a STYLE of music. The drums are logically placed. The instrumentation in "Thinking" is a classic emphasis on piano, Hammond organ, guitar, drums…exactly what you would expect.
The judge was clear when he dismissed the Structured Asset Sales case. He ruled the chord progression and the way it is played and the rhythm were NOT original or copyrightable as a matter of FACT. The protectable melody and lyrics have absolutely NOTHING in common that would indicate infringement.
The second SAS case with the recording should be thrown out for several reasons. The recording was made in 1973, regardless of the forced unauthorized copyright registration in 2020, by SAS , it still is a 1973 recording and the same rules apply to it . Sony still owns the copyright to the recording not SAS. SAS's Publishing rights are still limited to only what is on the sheet music, not the recording. None of this should even matter because there is a 3 year statute of limitations on copyright claims and SAS missed the deadline.
The second judge should uphold the first judges ruling and dismiss this second case. The matter has been decided, it should go no further.
Great points, HOWEVER RICK…. you say it's basically the same chord progression, BUT IT'S NOT! The 2nd chord for Sheeran is D/F# and for Gaye, it's F# minor. There's a C# in F# minor, and not one in D/F# !! i know they're close, but they are not the same chord, Period!! When one is arguing a song ripoff, it comes down to details like this, the minutia, therefore, the chord progression is different. So please add that to your argument that the melody is different, the lyrics are different and the rhythm of the melody is different…… AND THE CHORD PROGRESSION IS DIFFERENT.
White musicians have been stealing from Black artists, for DECADES. ESPECIALLY from Black music legends. Only a culturally-segregated demographic who mostly listens to classic rock/metal/country would deny this. Their radio stations exclude certain styles of music and songs. So, for the majority of their lives…. they're accustomed to a few "token" Black artists integrating their music world. So, OF COURSE these aforementioned people are dumb about: Bruno Mars ('Uptown Funk". COMPLETE rip from early 80's funk artists. And anyway, Bruno emerged on the scene impersonating Elvis. Then, he switched to Black American-influenced music).
[ But, a culturally-segregated, classic rock/pop/metal/country -based audience are ignorant as hell, about this. OR, they'll bend the rules to match their bias.]
Robin Thicke (an OBVIOUS STEAL, from producer Pharrell. Pharrell knows this….because he's from Black American culture. He's no dummy. Just like he completely imitated Curtis Mayfield's style, for "Happy".
[ But, again; a culturally-segregated, classic rock/pop/metal/country -based audience are ignorant as hell, about this. OR, they'll bend the rules to match their bias.]
Or….they'll just blatantly re-make the song, to reach the segregated audience who otherwise wouldn't listen to "those" artists. Hence, white folks acting like rap music started with The Beastie Boys and Eminem. This aforementioned demographic will defend Ed Sheeran…..because of their lack of music knowledge. They don't care, anyway. And they'll spend all day rationalizing why it's okay to take from the source.
The only thing Sheeran has in abundance is a very aggressive PR team
As far as talent is concerned… a 5 y.o. could give him lessons and ideas
The UNtalented Mr. Sheeran
I guess I know nothing about music because I think it’s completely different songs.. n how do you create new things with same instruments and sounds without it having some similarities!
It's incredibly similar! Listen to it!
Weet het effe niet zo goed als mogelijk te laten weten wat je er met de juiste woorden voor te vinden.
imitating, emulating and even stealing the work or ideas of other artists was a surprisingly common practice during the Renaissance period..its an undeniable part if art evolution and progression..
I not a pro but to me it's two very diffrent songs (I like Gayes best but both are very good)
The real question here is whether or not Ed knew “his song” sounded exactly like Let’s Get It On. How could he not. I think you can’t just add a slightly different melody and different words to an existing hit song and change up the chorus (cuz he knew?) and call it your new song. If that’s ok we can all be star songwriters. IMO. Pay the suit but $100 million? Wow.
YouTube has been kicking every body videos with the same try it…
A nother stiuped law suit some one wanting to rob someone.
They are two very different songs with many common features. You can't copyright a groove – it would be like copyrighting a colour.
Lawyers and greed! Two different songs … love them both.
This is ridiculous 😂 they have the same chords and a similar beat but so many songs have those chords so they’ll have to sue everyone
The jury gave him the win.
2023 now and Ed Sheeran won the case because the structure in which the building blocks in music, can not be owned by any particular artist. He even went on to prove that in the 1700's the way some music was composed is being even used in today's standard of music and if 1 is allowed to copyright a piece in which the structure of music is composed by they blocks of music the artists can use, no one would continue to write music anymore because the artist someday, maybe one day be sued for copyright infringements and all and anyone can be sued not just in the United States but anywhere throughout the world.
I heard the Ed Sheeran song "Thinking Out Loud" for the first time today on the radio and immediately could hear and thought of Marvin Gaye's "Let's get it on" in the Ed Sheeran song. And I was not aware there was a lawsuit until I googled it to see if anyone else had noticed the similarity in the songs.
I have literally heard both songs millions of times and not once thought "huh! They sound the same!"
To be honest I don't hear any melody – do you mean vocal melody? I tend to think of melody as first and foremost instrumental rather than vocal, but yeah I can hear their vocal lines are different.
I guess the plaintiff is gonna suggest in the absence of any instrumental melody, with only the chords, bass, groove underneath the voice, it seems like Ed used Marvin's music to put his own lyrics to. The presence of different lyrics hardly means the song is not stolen, we would expect that. That made no difference in the My Sweet Lord case for instance. There might well be other differences in the music as well. While I think it's a good argument that the vocal melodies are different, it does seem like Ed lifted the background music. Surely that's enough for an artist to claim plagiarism?
I wouldn’t be surprised if he listened to that song a few times while writing his song. It’s like the difference between football and rugby, not football and rocket surgery.
In the court case Ed played over 100 songs with the same chord progression with a guitar.
There are many previous artists before Marvin Gaye who could sue Marvin for the same song.
I think that it's disgusting that this was actually a legal company that purchased the rights and then go out and use it to sue everyone.
nothing is new under the sun
When your work don't legs like they use to before.
how can a judge decide on this case which is technologically musical in nature that is not in the realm of the judge?
THE MELODY
The 'rules' of musical composition permit a finite number of viable outcomes, at least in the context of a phrase or a couple of bars. Queen's Fat-Bottomed Girls has the same chord progression throughout as Hello Mary Lou and a very similar melody in the verses (as do a dozen other songs I can think of right off the top of my head – I named those two because they're in the same key so you can play a recording of one while singing the other and it works perfectly) – Did Gene Pitney Sue Freddie Mercury? He did not. If you know C, G, A & F you can play every song that was ever played on the radio in the 1950s and for the '70s you only need three of those. Did they go around suing each other? They did not. Which was written first, The Jean Genie or Blockbuster? I have no idea but I'm pretty sure neither David Bowie nor Mike Chapman went crying to a judge. If a composer's been dead long enough you can copy him and call it a tribute or claim it as your own… no one cares. I mean did Sting credit JS Bach on Every Breath You Take? I don't think so. Is Sergei Rachmaninov named on the label of All By Myself? Again, I think not. Ed Sheeran is MUCH closer to Marvin Gaye than George Harrison was to Ronnie Mack… three friggin notes was enough for the legal profession to score a massive pay day on that farce, so it seems to come down to whether the judge actually knows anything about music. Did Ed copy Marvin? Yes, blatantly. The melody may be different but everything else is identical. The possibility of coincidence is precisely zero, but do I care? No, not even slightly because the first thing I learned to play on the piano was chopsticks and that, in essence, is 90% of all the 20th Century "original" music there ever was.
I hate both songs and could care less, zeppelin got away with stealing willie dixons song for 20 years, whole lotta love, they settled. No contest kinda thing.
just intensely crazy.. I hope the plaintiff is fined million dollars for damages
dude definitely stole it. but to be fair he changed it enough in my opinion to be a unique and different work.
i personally don't believe in such strict plagiarism copyright laws.
as in music and arts plagiarism and copying is so deeply ingrained, you either are doing it deliberately or subconsciously. but either way ppl are doing it.
music is all based off the same basic stuff. so plagiarism is unavoidable.
the question is how deliberately he did.
as a lot of artists will sit down and literally remix other works. while others will do it subconsciously unaware.
All these Ed fans are in complete denial, lol. What else to you need. Your hereo is a song thief
The very FIRST time I heard Ed Sheeran's song I thought, "Hahahaha he literally ripped off Marvin Gaye"
There's always some song out there that's really similar to the one you just wrote…