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Ed Sheeran Copyright Lawsuit (1 Viewer)

Mrs. Rannous said:
Willie Neslon said:
Mrs. Rannous said:
Willie Neslon said:
Mrs. Rannous said:
Willie Neslon said:
I think it's a better lawsuit than the Blurred Lines case and the Gayes won that one. Same almost everything except the melody and a slight key change. Unintentional I'm sure but chords, beat, tempo identical. Going to come down to who has the best lawyers.
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If I compose a waltz, am I ripping off Johann Strauss? The two songs just aren't really alike. If they were, half of all calypso songs would be cribbing from the other half.
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I'm am not an attorney but I believe that is public domain. Someone else would probably know for sure.
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I said "ripping off", not some legal thing.
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Well then the answer is no. This is an apples and oranges comparison imo.
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No, it isn't. Just change the music type to ska or anything else with a standard beat.
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Is anybody who makes a sci-fi film ripping off Georges Méliès? What are we talking about here?
 
Willie Neslon said:
Mrs. Rannous said:
Willie Neslon said:
Mrs. Rannous said:
Willie Neslon said:
Mrs. Rannous said:
Willie Neslon said:
I think it's a better lawsuit than the Blurred Lines case and the Gayes won that one. Same almost everything except the melody and a slight key change. Unintentional I'm sure but chords, beat, tempo identical. Going to come down to who has the best lawyers.
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If I compose a waltz, am I ripping off Johann Strauss? The two songs just aren't really alike. If they were, half of all calypso songs would be cribbing from the other half.
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I'm am not an attorney but I believe that is public domain. Someone else would probably know for sure.
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I said "ripping off", not some legal thing.
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Well then the answer is no. This is an apples and oranges comparison imo.
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No, it isn't. Just change the music type to ska or anything else with a standard beat.
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Is anybody who makes a sci-fi film ripping off Georges Méliès? What are we talking about here?
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That's pretty much what the whole case is about. Fogerty got sued and the verdict came down to Fogerty sounds like Fogerty.

Beato does explain it nicely.
 
Leroy Hoard said:
Dr. Octopus said:
whoknew said:
I'm not musically smart enough to fully understand whether this opinion is overstating it, but I'd welcome others' opinion. If this lawsuit is successful, will there be just far reaching and negative consequences for the future of music?


The Ed Sheeran Lawsuit is a Threat to Western Civilization. Really.
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This has happened many times including George Harrison and John Fogerty as defendants and Tom Petty as a plaintiff.
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The one I remember most was the Led Zeppelin one where they had to change the songwriting credits on their first album.
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Although Led Zeppelin has adjusted the writing credits of several of their songs over the years, they've never actually lost a copyright lawsuit.

The writer of the original version of "Dazed And Confused" did file suit a few years ago, but he dropped the case in exchange for being namechecked in the album's liner notes. (And, I presume, he got a decent payday.) But the actual songwriting credit was not changed.
 
Zow said:
Todem said:
It’s completely ridiculous. Just insane honestly.
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It presumably passed summary judgment so it’s probably not ridiculous and insane.
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You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the law, and/or how it’s applied, can’t itself be ridiculous and insane.

I think we both know that there are plenty of laws/enforcement out there that are plenty ridiculous and insane. But hey, if you want to argue that something is sane just because a law may apply, well, I hope you don’t wear slippers after 10pm in New York.
 
Is this a marketing ploy to get people to listen to an Ed Sheeran song? lol. Never heard the song before today, but no way is that on the same level as Harrison's My Sweet Lord vs. He's So Fine. That was a legit case. You could lay the two on top of each other.

As for ripping off chord progressions, seems like there is precedent. Spirit had a better case vs. Zeppelin with Taurus/Stairway and they lost claiming they "owned" that progression. Would be a big surprise if Sheeran lost here.
 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
I should amend myself a bit here. I just saw a YouTube video from Rick Beato that got served to my timeline (gotta love that algorithm that knows anything I've spoken about today). It appears the crux of the similarity is in the slow, sparse piano part that features in the "groove" if not the melody of each song. The duh, DUH, duh duh. The chords are a bit different, but the progressions do sound very similar. So I was wrong about the extent of the allegations of what was "copied." It's a bit more substantial that what I understood it to be, although I'd also say that it's almost impossible that type of progression was unique to Let's Get It On in 1974. Again, I agree with Beato in that I think there are certainly more similarities here than what I heard in Blurred Lines to Got to Give It Up. In a sane statutory scheme, maybe we allow this kind of infringement analysis and then just use the damages analysis to let jury's conclude that the amount copied was modest enough to only support nominal damages. Unfortunately, the Copyright Act has a statutory damages clause assigning $150,000 of damages for EACH unauthorized copy, which again, is orders of magnitude over the license fee Sheeran would pay for just recording a faithful cover of Let's Get It On. It's all so gloriously stupid.

Link to the YouTube video
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Rick says the instrumentation is substantially similar, but I don’t really agree with that overall. The piano parts are completely different and the guitar work on the Gaye tune is dissimilar. Very similar chord progression (though in different keys and Sheeran switches up the second half of the verse), same tempo, and similar backbeat/groove. Will that be enough? I hope not.
 
GroveDiesel said:
Zow said:
Todem said:
It’s completely ridiculous. Just insane honestly.
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It presumably passed summary judgment so it’s probably not ridiculous and insane.
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You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the law, and/or how it’s applied, can’t itself be ridiculous and insane.

I think we both know that there are plenty of laws/enforcement out there that are plenty ridiculous and insane. But hey, if you want to argue that something is sane just because a law may apply, well, I hope you don’t wear slippers after 10pm in New York.
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It’s a ridiculous lawsuit. Plain and simple. I listened to both songs. And also I am a longtime musician.

This is a freaking hail mary reach…..despite whatever laws are dictating this moving forward.

Common sense tells me it’s ridiculous and frivolous.
 
GroveDiesel said:
Zow said:
Todem said:
It’s completely ridiculous. Just insane honestly.
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It presumably passed summary judgment so it’s probably not ridiculous and insane.
Click to expand...
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the law, and/or how it’s applied, can’t itself be ridiculous and insane.

I think we both know that there are plenty of laws/enforcement out there that are plenty ridiculous and insane. But hey, if you want to argue that something is sane just because a law may apply, well, I hope you don’t wear slippers after 10pm in New York.
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TL/DR - I agree.

Longer version:

When I was sued 10+ years ago I was beyond astonished and what was allowed as “evidence” in the pre trial process. 100% completely irrelevant information was used to dismiss the case. I assume if it went to the discovery phase it’s possible the evidence would be more scrutinized but the sheer lack of knowledge on the subject we were there for was a major eye-opening experience.

In another case I was a juror on a traffic accident case. The plaintiff, was obviously speeding, hit the defendant, a Porsche driving instructor. The defendant’s attorney didn’t mention his clients expertise as a driving instructor at any point during the entire case. I was flabbergasted.
 
I have never heard the Sheeran song in question, so I have no insight there. However, seeing this thread in the wake of Gordon Lightfoot's death reminded me of the lawsuit he filed against Michael Masser for ripping off "If You Could Read My Mind". The Masser song "The Greatest Love of All", originally recorded by George Benson and popularized by Whitney Houston, is a pretty clear copy cat. Lightfoot ended up dropping the lawsuit out of respect for Whitney not wanting to create a negative impact on her career as his beef was really with the songwriter. I do not know the details of the resolution, but it was eventually settled out of court and Masser issued a public apology.
 
Galileo said:
However, seeing this thread in the wake of Gordon Lightfoot's death reminded me of the lawsuit he filed against Michael Masser for ripping off "If You Could Read My Mind". The Masser song "The Greatest Love of All", originally recorded by George Benson and popularized by Whitney Houston, is a pretty clear copy cat.
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I have to listen to these two one after the other ... I had never noticed a similarity.

Lightfoot said it was 24 bars that Masser lifted. Was it the bridge?
 
And Green Day's "American Idiot" ripped off Dillinger Four's "Doublewhiskeycokenoice" and they settled for a good chunk of change out of court. Copying happens a bunch. It's just that the case at hand seems to take basic progressions and try to copyright them all for the user of that progression at one point in time.

If that's the case, that's not good.
 
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Zow said:
Todem said:
Zow said:
Todem said:
It’s completely ridiculous. Just insane honestly.
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It presumably passed summary judgment so it’s probably not ridiculous and insane.
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Ridiculous and insane.......final answer.
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Oh, okay. Makes sense. I mean, what would a judge know about the law and specifically pled facts anyway?
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this is a dumb hill to die on woz you know that even specious claims can make it past summary judgment because granting summary judgment is a drastic remedy which should not oft be employed in most jurisdictions so a claim can be ridiculous and insane and still make it to a jury and as a card holding member of the bar you know that take that to the bank brochacho
 

Sheeran hugged and spoke at length with one of the plaintiffs after jury's verdict​

From CNN’s Nicki Brown

Musician Ed Sheeran and Kathryn Townsend Griffin, a plaintiff in his copyright infringement case, embraced and spoke at length after learning of the jury's verdict.
The jury found Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud" did not wrongfully copy the Marvin Gaye classic "Let's Get It On," which was co-written by Ed Townsend — Griffin's father.
"I'm glad that we could hug this thing out," Griffin said after court, adding Sheeran had invited her to one of his upcoming shows.
Griffin said she respects the jury's decision.
"I stood up for my father's intellectual property," she said. "This was never about money — it was only principles."

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This angers me because it was only about money.
 
Osaurus said:
rockaction said:
Osaurus said:
I have to see him live on the 21st :bag:
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You hated music for just that moment, didn't you? Jury just couldn't cut you a break.
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Lol. This will be my 2nd time seeing him live thanks to Mrs. O. No jury would ever cut me a break.

ETA: She’s told me on several occasions that it’s for taking her to see Joe Jackson.
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I'll be taking my wife to see him live for the second time later this year. Makes her happy, and while his music is not top of my list, his last live show was fairly entertaining and it was impressive the number of instruments he could play and his ability to blend genres a bit.
 
Osaurus said:
rockaction said:
Osaurus said:
I have to see him live on the 21st :bag:
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You hated music for just that moment, didn't you? Jury just couldn't cut you a break.
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Lol. This will be my 2nd time seeing him live thanks to Mrs. O. No jury would ever cut me a break.

ETA: She’s told me on several occasions that it’s for taking her to see Joe Jackson.
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I saw him once...he acknowledged that the men that attend his concerts are either there because their girlfriends wanted to go or because they were fathers taking their daughters. He then advised the fathers to buy cheap bootleg shirts outside of the stadium and to use the money they saved to buy themselves a couple beers.
 
culdeus said:
Nathan R. Jessep said:
bigbottom said:
My view is that while the chord progression is similar, the melody is completely different. Heck, there are tons of songs that use the same chord progression. I mean everyone has seen that Axis of Awesome 4 chords video, right?
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The defense team actually played that Axis of Awesome video as part of their statement: https://variety.com/2023/music/news...ets-thinking-out-loud-stand-trial-1235597495/
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Rules
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So watched this video and got fed more, they have like a full hour of this of all different songs seemingly. Amazing.
 
Grahamburn said:
Osaurus said:
Jaysus said:
Wait, so that means he's not quitting music? Crap, I'll never get him out of my Spotify algorithm now :hot:
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I have to see him live on the 21st :bag:
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75,000 to see a guy play acoustic guitar on a loop. I couldn’t believe it. Decent show though I guess.
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He had backing musicians for part of the show fwiw. The stage production was actually pretty cool. Traffic to and from was not.
 
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