Before I begin, I encourage you to watch Adam Neely's breakdown of the lawsuit between Ed Sheeran and Ed Townsend's estate (co-writer of Marvin Gaye's song "Let's Get It On"). He’ll explain the finer details of why this lawsuit against Ed Sheeran is, as my English friends would say, daft.
I don’t know if they’d say that, but, um... this lawsuit is stupid.
First, let me emphasize a point, because I’m going to keep referencing it. You can’t copyright harmony.
All together, now: you can’t copyright harmony.
Now, let’s talk about the lawsuit itself, in a nutshell.
Ed Sheeran is being sued for $100,000,000 in, and I think this is a hilarious term in litigation lexicon, “damages.”
YOU’VE DAMAGED ME. YOU WILL PAY. $100,000,000!
Here’s the skinny: The heirs of Ed Townsend, co-songwriter of the Marvin Gaye hit "Let's Get It On", have alleged willful infringement on Sheeran's part. Their statement in 2016 when this lawsuit was first opened was this:
“The harmonic progressions, melodic and rhythmic elements, as observed in Let's have made [it] one of the most well-known and instantly recognizable songs in R&B history. These elements… are the 'heart' or qualitatively, the most important elements of the song as indicated by critical acclaim."
This lawsuit was already filed and withdrawn in 2016 after no elements of plagiarism were found, but has been reopened by a company in New York called Structured Asset Sales (SAS). Seems like a wholesome, well-to-do company.
This is the message I want to convey about ass, I mean SAS, who has intervened in this case to grab money–er, I mean, represent the Townsend estate:
This isn't a lawsuit about protecting a classic RnB hit from copyright infringement. This is a business play. To make the claim you’ve been "irreparably harmed [and] suffered damage" is, hold on, let me use a big word because that seems to convince people of stuff, contemptuous.
It’s disrespectful to people who actually have real problems. So, on behalf of everyone with half a brain or more, let me just say this to the Townsend estate and their representation: we don’t feel bad for you.
Here’s the real issue. This lawsuit suggests that a song released over 40 years ago will face financial damages, as if millions of people were still buying it today. It also suggests that since Sheeran’s song now exists, we’ll never listen to "Let’s Get It On" again.
I have a question, though. There have been countless songs with the same chord progression written over the decades, so why hasn’t the Townsend estate released the hounds on them too?
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that "Thinking Out Loud" has garnered more than 2.3 billion views on YouTube and the album it’s on, X, has sold more than 15 million copies.
Hmm.
When Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams were forced to pay over $5,000,000 to Marvin Gaye’s estate, it was an ominous moment for the music industry. With blatant piracy, declining digital sales, and the ongoing battle of adapting to the constant motion and evolution of streaming and online business in general, the fear of infringement is needless anxiety musicians face, and it exists only due to money-grubbing scumbags whose musical taste begins and ends before a chord is even played.
While copyright infringement laws are important and must exist, this particular instance is setting an unacceptable precedent. It’s a clear extortion of those copyright laws, and the sad part is, the argument presented in court by ass, I mean SAS, is literally incorrect from a perspective of musicians with higher education like Adam Neely, Rick Beato, myself, and countless others.
SAS says: “In Gaye’s song, this chord progression within the backing pattern occurs in the key of E flat, and in Sheeran’s song the progression occurs in D major […] listeners will hear the two progressions as functionally equivalent […] Many listeners will not recognize that Frank Sinatra sang ‘My Way’ in D major, while Elvis Presley sang that song in C major; it is clearly the same song despite the difference in key.”
This is referencing harmony. All together now: you can’t copyright harmony.
If I went to the stand in a courtroom and strung together an agglomeration of bombastic, long-winded, loquacious verbiage with the intention to glaze over the eyes of the jury rather than bequeath the imperforate truth, it’d be pretty easy to say these two songs are similar.
But guess what? There are no melodic similarities. None. And that’s what’s protected under law. Melodies. Not chords.
You can’t copyright harmony.
