2023-05-04 21:26:58
The jury found that the planetary tube, Thinking Out Loud, by the British artist, was not a partial copy of the famous Let’s Get It On of the prince of soul Marvin Gaye in 1973.
The British musician and singer, Ed Sheeran, won his civil lawsuit in New York on Thursday where he was prosecuted for plagiarizing a song by American Marvin Gaye. The Manhattan federal court jury, which had been trying for ten days in this emblematic music copyright case, found that the 32-year-old singer had created his song “independently” and that his 2014 planetary hit, Thinking Out Loud was therefore not a partial copy of the famous Let’s Get It On of the prince of soul Marvin Gaye in 1973.
Second trial in a year
Ed Sheeran, who has attended the hearings since April 24 defending himself for having plagiarized the title of Marvin Gaye, stood up at the statement of the decision, thanked the jury and gave the hug to his team , according to an AFP journalist in the courtroom. In a press release leaving the courthouse, he said “very happy” of his victory against a complaint “unfounded” but also “incredibly frustrated” that such a musical copyright case “can go to court”. “I’m just a guitar guy who likes to write songs to make people happy,” again launched the star currently on tour in the eastern United States.
The plaintiffs were heirs of Ed Townsend, an American musician and producer who co-wrote the track Let’s Get It On with Marvin Gaye, an African-American soul legend (1939-1984). The civil party pointed “striking similarities and clear common elements” between this song and Thinking Out Loud. This is the second trial won in a year by Ed Sheeran: he also won a separate legal battle in April 2022 before the High Court in London, which dismissed two musicians accusing him of having copied one of their works for his mega hit Shape Of You.
Read alsoPlagiarism: who are the musicologists, these experts who dissect the songs?
In New York, the British singer-songwriter even had to play the guitar and sing in court as a pledge of good faith. Quoted by the prosecution, a musicologist had indeed declared that the chord progression on the two pieces of Sheeran and Gaye was almost identical. The Brit also said he wrote his hit in 2014 with his musical partner Amy Wadge in “coming out of the shower” his home. The track rose to second on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy Award for Best Song in 2016.
“Paranoia”
The risk of the Sheeran trial, experts fear, is the multiplication of disputes over copyright and a form of “paranoia” that would develop in musicians terrified of copying each other. “The world I want to live in is one where no one is suing anyone for melodic or harmonic similarities, because they can easily arise by coincidence”explains to AFP Joe Bennett, musicologist at the Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts. “This shouldn’t fall under copyright protection”he believes.
The work of Motown label king Marvin Gaye had previously been the subject of a lawsuit when his family – who were not a party to the Sheeran lawsuit – won against artists Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over similarities between songs Blurred Lines et Got To Give It Up. This had surprised the music industry and lawyers who consider that many melodic and harmonic elements belong to the public domain.
Read alsoEd Sheeran again faces the judges for plagiarism
In the case Stairway to Heaven, much better known, where the famous British hard rock band Led Zeppelin triumphed over a Californian formation, American justice ruled in 2020 that the legendary 1971 title was not plagiarism. But for Joseph Fishman, professor of intellectual property law at Vanderbilt University, the Sheeran lawsuit risks setting a precedent: “It can chill songwriters in their way of writing: ‘Is my case going to end up in court?’”. Especially since in 1976, the Briton George Harrison was held responsible for having “unconsciously” plagiarized He’s so Fine of the group Chiffons for its solo title My Sweet Lord. The former Beatles had written in his memoirs that he then suffered from “songwriting paranoia.”
#Singer #Sheeran #wins #plagiarism #lawsuit #York