An investigation into plagiarism in music and the issues facing pop stars today
By Jemimah Harrison
Ed Sheeran is one of the most successful pop stars and songwriters currently. He made over £556 million from his Divide World Tour and he is currently ranked as the 5th most streamed artist on Spotify (October 2023). On the same platform he has 11 songs with over 1 billion streams and Shape of You, the hit song from his third album ÷, has raked in over 3 billion streams since its release in 2017.
All of these facts prove Sheeran to be a force to be reckoned with in the music industry, but this does not stop him from being susceptible to issues that are beginning to face many musicians and songwriters today.
This issue is the increase in lawsuits that songwriters and musicians are experiencing, due to the notably increased repetitiveness of modern pop music.
Ed Sheeran has faced two lawsuits over his song Thinking Out Loud, over the similarities it has with Martin Gaye’s 1973 hit Let’s Get It On. One of the lawsuits came from Ed Townsend’s family - Townsend originally wrote the song with Gaye and his family own part of his catalogue. The other lawsuit had come from David Pullman (CEO of Structured Asset Sales) who owns a third of Martin Gaye’s music but this case was dismissed in 2018. The cases claimed that Sheeran in Thinking Out Loud had copied the chord progression and baseline, among other things from Let’s Get It On. The lyrics of both songs are very different as is the melody. However if you take these things away it could be noted that they do sound very alike.
Thinking out loud is a love song written about Sheeran’s then girlfriend, and is one of the few happier songs on the album X, Ed’s sophomore record released in 2014. It has a laid back beat and mainly uses the acoustic guitar for the chords, with some sections including piano. The heart-felt vocals and lyrics from Sheeran take centre stage, and throughout the song he imagines growing old with the love of his life. The song is now considered a certified ‘first dance’ song and spent a full year in the UK top 40 when it was released.
Let’s Get It On topped the charts of US pop and RnB in the summer of 1973 and has a very spiritual feel to the music. In contrast, the focus of the lyrics is feeling sex positive as Gaye grew up with his father, a preacher, teaching him that sex was a shameful thing. The statement he was making at the time was impressive, but with this as context it shows the walls Martin was breaking down in his own life as well.
When you listen to them, the songs do sound relatively similar but this does not mean Let’s Get It On was a completely original song either. Over the course of the court case it was found that multiple songs had chords like the ones used by Gaye and Townsend. Not only that but multiple songs following its release, before Thinking Out Loud came out and since then had the same chord progressions as well. When in front of the jury Sheeran pulled out his guitar and played a multitude of hits with the chords used for his song. Making the point that many songs use the same chords in pop music as there are only a certain number to be used in the first place. One of my personal favourite videos is Ed Sheeran on RTL Late Night where he was dared by the host to use four chords and the host picked any song from the charts. Sheeran took him up on this and over the said four chords he played songs by Passenger, Greg David and the Beatles.
There is a twist though. So far reading this you might have thought that Sheeran has done nothing wrong, both songs are as original as they can be - people are just searching for money. Or maybe you think the opposite, either way it seems that Sheeran himself might have had a huge impact in the copying claims. While in Zurich on his 2014 tour Sheeran played a Thinking Out Loud and Let’s Get It On mashup, and as you can imagine, when this video was found it only fueled the fire of the accusation of his copyin Gaye’s song. From doing this mashup it comes across that he is also acknowledging the similarities and the fact they have the same chord progression so it could be taken to show that Sheeran himself, at one point did hear the likeness, however he did not at any point claim they were similar in the court case. This leads me to say that musicians, like the rest of us, listen to music, if not more so. Meaning that it is only inevitable that they will be influenced by what they hear, on top of that, many when discussing their most recent project will only be too happy to also mention what they were listening to, and what inspired them during the process. On the other hand, linking back to my previous point about the limitations of pop music and the small number of chords used, Sheeran is merely noting this and making a fun version of the song for the pleasure of the crowd.
Many musicians and songwriters are now having to deal with these kinds of claims and this is very much linked to the increase in uses of technology to distinguish whether a song is similar. This means that people can be a lot more accurate with noticing it, or are trying to find the parts that sound the same. Another factor is just the sheer amount of music being released. For example 60,000 new songs are uploaded onto Spotify every single day - that quickly adds up. The more songs that are available, the more likely it is that something sounds the same. However as with everything, there are positives and negatives. While technology can be of use in cases like this, (or have a negative affect meaning people are just looking for parts that could have been ‘copied’) it has advanced the music industry and makes it easier than ever before to create, listen and share music.
This situation is not unique to Ed Sheeran. Olivia Rodrigo recently had to give credits to Hayley Williams and Taylor Swift after it was pointed out that two of her songs from her album SOUR shared similarities with their songs. In this case fans had a huge impact by using the internet as a place to report the similarities they found. For example many people saw similarities between Paramore’s Misery Business and Rodrigo’s Good 4 U but when Hayley Williams was given credits on the song she used Instagram as a platform to show how she felt about it. She said ‘our publisher is wildin rn’ giving the impression to her followers that she herself did not want or believe she deserved the credits, but as there was such a surge of comments which might have made Olivia and her team feel it necessary to give it to her. As I have mentioned before this is very common for musicians today, and when this occurs it means they have to share a proportion of the royalties of the song with the other ‘writers’.
Sheeran himself sums up some of the key feelings about this issue in the video he released on Youtube after finding out he had won the court case. From watching the video you can see that although he is grateful for the win, and so are his co-writers, that isn’t necessarily the first thing on their minds. Instead he focuses on the gruelling feeling of being involved in a case such as this, which can go for so long and ‘is really damaging to the songwriting industry’ as these kinds of coincidences are ‘bound to happen’ with the same chords being used repeatedly in pop music. The case for him was much more about being honest about the songwriting rather than trying to win any money. However, Sheeran doesn’t really have to worry about money. It is the smaller artists who don’t have the same funds that are going to fall victim to this situation instead.
It can sometimes seem that people forget there is a human behind these songs who is most of the time writing for the love of music and because it is a way for them to process their feelings. They are not robots pumping out hit after hit (even if it feels like it) and they should not be treated like they are.
Personally, I think now is the time for these conversations to occur - is it right that credits should be given to other artists that were not in the room when the song was written? Or should credits be given to artists and songwriters whose songs were just sighted as influences?
It could even be concluded that the nature of pop music has left it susceptible to this problem - maybe we should all just divert our music taste to different genres? If these conversations happen now it means that in the future law courts are more aware of the nature of pop music and know how to act when cases do arise instead of them dragging on and leaving both parties exhausted and demoralised. The music industry is changing and needs to adapt or it will be left behind a mountain of court cases.
Bibliography:
Halperin, Shirley. “Ed Sheeran Wins 'Shape of You' Copyright Case.” Billboard, Billboard, 13 Dec. 2022, www.billboard.com/pro/ed-sheeran-award-shape-of-you-copyright-case/.
Guinness World Records. “Ed Sheeran Breaks U2’s Record For Highest-Grossing Tour Ever | Guinness World Records.” YouTube, 27 Aug. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=IncFMWWB9QU.
Beech, Mark. “Ed Sheeran's Record-Breaking 'Divide' Tour Totals $775.6 Million, Beating U2, Guns N' Roses.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 27 Aug. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/markbeech/2019/08/27/ed-sheerans-record-breaking-divide-tour-totals-7756-million-beating-u2-guns-n-roses/.
“Ed Sheeran Wins Another 'Thinking Out Loud' Copyright Lawsuit.” Pitchfork, 17 May 2023, pitchfork.com/news/ed-sheeran-wins-another-thinking-out-loud-copyright-lawsuit/#:~:text=Less%20than%20two%20weeks%20after,lawsuit%20involving%20the%20two%20songs.
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Rodrigo, Olivia. “Olivia Rodrigo Adds Paramore Writing Credit to 'good 4 u'.” New York Post, 25 Aug. 2021, nypost.com/2021/08/25/olivia-rodrigo-adds-paramore-writing-credit-to-good-4-u/.
Sheeran, Ed. “Thinking Out Loud.” Genius, 18 June 2014, genius.com/Ed-sheeran-thinking-out-loud-lyrics.
Genius. “Ed Sheeran Thinking Out Loud.” YouTube, 9 May 2020, www.youtube.com/shorts/QMDqYZebReo.
Gaye, Marvin. “Let's Get It On.” Genius, 15 June 1973, genius.com/Marvin-gaye-lets-get-it-on-lyrics.
MarvinGayeVEVO. “Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On (Official Video).” YouTube, 25 Apr. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQKZfvet2mc.