Ed Sheeran’s court victory reveals the paradox of putting creativity on trial | Alexis Petridis
Beyond merely being an interesting copyright case, the lawsuit alleging infringement by Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' of Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On' threatened artistic creativity and sought to tarnish the singer-songwriter's professional reputation. This was a big case, and Sheeran's taking a stand (and winning) was good for musicians everywhere. Outright theft is one thing. And I'm no expert--I can't even read music, although as a librarian I know a bit about copyright and licensing. Still, even I can figure out you've got eight notes to our music scale and about 338 commonly used guitar chords [possible ones are much greater, but most popular songs use a limited amount of chords, or so a quick Internet search tells me. Like I said, I'm not versed in music.] My point is, when songs are in the same key, there can be some overlap. You know what I do know about music? I listen to it, and a lot of it. I hear similarities all the time, usually fleeting. That doesn't mean the other song was ripped off in any way. This opinion piece outlines the effects of music copyright cases--and their arbitrary nature--has potentially on music creativity. Give it a look.
Lastly, it's true, I've always liked Ed Sheeran. His latest album will be delivered to my door today. I like his (admittedly public) self-effacing personality. I love his music. I have not heard one of his songs I didn't like, and that's something I can say about only a few musical artists, and those could fit on one hand. I've read that this suit was primarily brought not by the family of the co-writer, but by those who purchased the music catalogue. For them, it is all about money, not creativity. I hope we never get to the point where Money trumps Music. There are already too many people who sell out, put out music that just sounds the same, use auto-tune to make it sound pleasing, and then stick the singer's name on the writing credits like they really did something for it. It's interesting that a singer who obviously writes so much of his (and other people's) music, who incorporates different genres into his own catalogue, and who essentially produces 'real' popular music, is the one who got sued (twice now that I know of), given all that other same-sounding music out there. The author of the Guardian piece is right, it's all very haphazard.
PS I've also read that Sheeran missed his grandmother's funeral in Ireland for this trial. That's really a shame.
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