Ed Sheeran in court again for alleged plagiarism

barnstorm

JezWynd said:

Since Sheeran settled an earlier case out of court he seems to have become a target for any chancer with some music rights.

I think there have been a couple of cases now where a credit has been given.

Who knows whether that's because it was the sensible thing to do from a stress/money/time point of view, or because he had unconsciously reproduced something he'd heard before. (That terrible Hill/McGraw song, for example, was very similar in parts to the terrible song by the Australian lady, although Sheeran was only a co-writer on the former.)

But the fact that he's settled out of court before and refuses to here does suggest he and his lawyers think this is a real dogshit claim.

Funny how a case like this one drags on for years and other times hit pop songs appear with really striking similarities and there's (apparently) no aggro at all, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG8IkUoZ6j0 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZXHBgjQjNM

In the same year as one another, no less!

thecolourbox

I'm not really sure that makes him a bad person by default though, or that he's somehow a fraud, just because he went to a private school and somebody knew somebody who supposedly heard him say he was homeless or something. He always seems nice enough and clearly has worked hard at a career that would not normally be encouraged by posh boy schools.

merlin

If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out....

You don't have to pay the little troglodyte any attention at all if you really don't like him. You are also not required to buy his shitty, unwashed arsehole music. That is unless you secretly like it, like the 13 year old me buying the single Bohemian Rhapsody when it came out and pretending I didn't like it to my friends. 

thecolourbox

barnstorm said:

JezWynd said:

Since Sheeran settled an earlier case out of court he seems to have become a target for any chancer with some music rights.

I think there have been a couple of cases now where a credit has been given.

Who knows whether that's because it was the sensible thing to do from a stress/money/time point of view, or because he had unconsciously reproduced something he'd heard before. (That terrible Hill/McGraw song, for example, was very similar in parts to the terrible song by the Australian lady, although Sheeran was only a co-writer on the former.)

But the fact that he's settled out of court before and refuses to here does suggest he and his lawyers think this is a real dogshit claim.

Funny how a case like this one drags on for years and other times hit pop songs appear with really striking similarities and there's (apparently) no aggro at all, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG8IkUoZ6j0 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZXHBgjQjNM

In the same year as one another, no less!

They were probably the same people involved

barnstorm

thecolourbox said:

They were probably the same people involved

It might as well have been exactly the same personnel all around! But I think they were totally separate in terms of management and labels at that point, despite both bands being Pearlman creations, and certainly the writers of those two songs were different.

Maybe there's just some sort of code among people operating in the cookie-cutter music business. I won't make a fuss if you 'borrow' from me, because my next song will probably sound like one of yours…

KDS

roberty said:

thecolourbox said:

roberty said:

Princess Beatrice once accidentally sliced Sheeran's face open with a ceremonial sword, which may be a clue as to the nature of his class background

https://observer.com/2020/10/princess-beatrice-cut-ed-sheeran-face-sword-confirmed-manager-royal-lodge-james-blunt/

Five years after his first album? And after about 6.5m album sales as well

Coming straight out of Hebden, crazy motherfucker called Sheeran, from a band called, Ed Sheeran

His father was a curator at Cartwright Hall in Bradford and his mother worked at Manchester City Art Gallery. In December 1995 he moved with his family from Hebden Bridge to Framlingham in Suffolk, where he attended the independent Brandeston Hall preparatory school

That’s brilliant

if we recorded a version of that would we be in court facing Sheran or NWA?

Vintage65

roberty said:

Princess Beatrice once accidentally sliced Sheeran's face open with a ceremonial sword, which may be a clue as to the nature of his class background

https://observer.com/2020/10/princess-beatrice-cut-ed-sheeran-face-sword-confirmed-manager-royal-lodge-james-blunt/

It's such a pity that she never decapitated him and saved me from any further ear bashing!  

merlin

Vintage65 said:

roberty said:

Princess Beatrice once accidentally sliced Sheeran's face open with a ceremonial sword, which may be a clue as to the nature of his class background

https://observer.com/2020/10/princess-beatrice-cut-ed-sheeran-face-sword-confirmed-manager-royal-lodge-james-blunt/

It's such a pity she never decapitated him and saved me from any further ear bashing!  

Damn good job they weren't playing fake "Russian Roulette" with "unloaded" hand guns.  

theatreanchor

Even if I don’t like them or their music, anyone making a living from music deserves whatever they can get. 

Offset

roberty said:

Radiohead had to give a load of money to the Hollies for similarities to their song Creep. Then later Lana Del Ray had to give moneymto Radiohead because of similarities between Creep and a song of her own

I presume Creep was lifted from The Air That I Breathe (Google confirms).  Not a likeness that immediately sprang to mind I must confess, even though Radiohead admitted using the refrain.

The most blatant and obvious piece of plagiarism was committed by a band I really like - The Flaming Lips.  Their track 'Fight Test' is an obvious lift of Cat Stevens' 'Father & Son' and it forcibly struck me the very first time I heard it.  Stevens gets 75% of the royalties.  And I'd have to say deservedly so.

The Sheeran thing is just a naked and slightly sickening money-grab.  Very distasteful.

Offset

ICBM said:

"A plagiarism on both their houses" - William Shakespeare

FTFY.

Offset

roberty said:

According to a FOH friend who knows people who have worked with him, he's really good to work with and treats everyone well. People will be more inclined to help you if they have good experiences. He wouldn't have got where he is by being a prick, not with that face

Tentative I know, but a close friend worked with a guy whose son was good friends with Sheeran at school.  A young Ed would come round to this chap's house to play with his lad.  Nothing but nice things to say about ES - a lovely kid apparently and nothing much has changed over the years.

I don't like his music in the slightest but I wouldn't begrudge him a penny of his considerable fortune.  He's talented, has worked hard and has got there without being a tosser.  Frankly there are too few successful people like him around so more power to his elbow.

stickyfiddle

Adam Neely is on point, as usual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpzLD-SAwW8

And also on his views on music copyright in general

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAFUdIZnI5o&t=0s

roberty

Offset said:
The most blatant and obvious piece of plagiarism was committed by a band I really like - The Flaming Lips.  Their track 'Fight Test' is an obvious lift of Cat Stevens' 'Father & Son' and it forcibly struck me the very first time I heard it.  Stevens gets 75% of the royalties.  And I'd have to say deservedly so.

This is probably the worst I've heard

Offset

...and then of course there is the uncanny resemblance between 'Hotel California' and Jethro Tull's 'We Used To Know'... 

ICBM

Offset said:

...and then of course there is the uncanny resemblance between 'Hotel California' and Jethro Tull's 'We Used To Know'... 

That one is a coincidence. It's been raised so many times by people who know that the Eagles toured with Tull, but easily disproved... Don Felder wrote the chord progression (the demo was called 'Mexican Reggae', because that's what it sounded like originally), but wasn't in the Eagles at the time - it was a couple of years before he joined.

Personally I don't even think it sounds that similar, and I'm a fan of both bands and have both albums. It's not even a particularly unusual chord progression and was quite likely used before either of them.

Jfingers

Since I know how popular Green Day, Oasis, Travis and Eminem are on here, I thought I'd share this with you all. I don't mind it, certainly wouldn't turn the car radio off, might even turn it up!

Offset

ICBM said:

Offset said:

...and then of course there is the uncanny resemblance between 'Hotel California' and Jethro Tull's 'We Used To Know'... 

That one is a coincidence. It's been raised so many times by people who know that the Eagles toured with Tull, but easily disproved... Don Felder wrote the chord progression (the demo was called 'Mexican Reggae', because that's what it sounded like originally), but wasn't in the Eagles at the time - it was a couple of years before he joined.

Personally I don't even think it sounds that similar, and I'm a fan of both bands and have both albums. It's not even a particularly unusual chord progression and was quite likely used before either of them.

Fair points, but to my ear they resemble each other to a greater extent than some cases which have resulted in successful court cases.

roberty

I was told a story by someone who was acquainted with pulp in the 1980s. There was this song that was popular in Europe and bands used to bring copies of it back from tours as a sort of meme/souvenir/running gag



The similarities are painfully obvious to anyone from Spain apparently



This person basically thinks Common People was written in part as a kind of an in joke

BillDL

Adam Neely summed this up as far as I am concerned.  If you want to write or perform a song in a particular genre you need to conform to a rhythmic style or include certain musical motifs that make it sound like that genre or else the music will sound like another genre.  You can't (or shouldn't be able to) copyright a chord progression. Should people be able to protect their genre and gather royalties from other songs that use the same motifs and elements to make songs sound correct for a particular genre?

Sheeran clearly chose to perform solo with an acoustic guitar fairly early on - more or less "busking".  Part of solo busking with an acoustic guitar is being able to use fairly minimalistic chord changes and include catchy strum or pick patterns to fill in for the absence of other instruments and also make it easy to sing over.  Going back to some of his older solo songs on acoustic he seems to have always used a little hammer-on kind of "bounce" to embellish his rhythmic style of playing, usually just before a chord change.  That little "bounce" does sound like a leading note in a few songs I've heard in the same genre as Marvin Gaye.  Sheeran most likely picked this up in much the same way as other musicians pick up little "signatures" and incorporate them into their own playing. When it comes right down to musical notation, it is this rhythmic style that is being cited as the main "evidence of plagiarism" in the current case.

Personally I think a win by the songwriter's estate here would open floodgates for thousands of other spurious law suits.  Who "owns" the drum rim shots that open just about every song written or performed in a Reggae style?  Does anybody have artistic ownership of "skank" style of up-strums on the treble strings on the 2 and 4 beats?  It won't stop.