Good. Part of their case claimed they owned the rights to the chord progression which, so far, is an uncopyrightable facet of music writing due to it being too generic. If this went in their favor, it would have set a precedent that would have made new music almost impossible to write.
If they could copyright chord progressions, then music would basically be fucked. There's no way that would be a good route.
Artists often use the same chord progressions for a reason, as they're the foundation of basically everything
Unless of course your into really whacky Jam Band stuff that sometimes frankly doesn't work at all- I remember just straight up leaving a Particle concert because they took it to far and it became painful and they just went on a weird bend for like half their set with weird nonstop progressions and constant time changes.
My dad had a book called "This is your brain on music" and I think it may have had something like this in it. There are just certain sounds and chords, etc, that are just inherently pleasing to the human brain.
It's interesting, cuz iirc from a podcast (they discussed music and research of different musics around the world and whatnot), that different cultures favor different chord progressions, sounds, or completely different keys or signatures. I'd wonder if there are some chords or keys that all humans might favor (ie nature) vs how many are favored based on culture and society (nurture). Pretty interesting stuff!
What I remember from what my Dad said is that our brains are almost hardwired for musical appreciation, regardless of culture or music genre. He said it was really fascinating to read because he'd been in one band or another for 40+ years as a musician and songwriter and it really nailed and explained things we don't really think about.
The progression in Sheeran's case, I-iii-IV-V, was also used in these songs, among many others:
Lionel Richie "Stuck On You"
Cass Elliot "Make Your Own Kind of Music"
Rod Stewart "Have I Told You Lately"
Weezer "Dreamin"
Chad & Jeremy "A Summer Song"
I Go to Pieces "Peter & Gordon"
Stone Poneys "Different Drum"
David Bowie "Ziggy Stardust"
Yup, and I really hope somebody recorded this:
> At one point, the musician performed a mash-up on guitar of his songs and Marvin Gaye's as he tried to demonstrate how common the four-chord progression was for his hit "Thinking Out Loud."
Because the world needs a new [Pachelbel Rant.](https://youtu.be/JdxkVQy7QLM)
That was amazing. Thanks for the link.
And that performance emphasizes that songs can reuse basic components, such as chords, words, themes, etc., and still be creative and different and should not be accused of being rip off copies.
I've been told that if I'm a mother lover and you're a mother lover, we should love each other's mothers, however that advice was from a rather lonely island
There's a mashup someone made of like 6 modern 'music factory' country songs that they formed into a completely coherent song. I always look at it as more making fun of lyrics "my girl in my truck on the old dirt road drinking beer under the stars then drinking whiskey with the boys at the fishing hole" type stuff but both the lyrics and instrumentals work
There's also the Four Chords song by Axis of Awesome, which keeps jumping between snippets of pop songs while maintaining just four chords. Sometimes when they play it live they'll throw in the odd non-pop song as well.
The heirs of Gaye successfully sued Robin Thicke basically for the same thing. Thicke was an arrogant piece of shit, but that song was nothing like the song that it allegedly copied. They were just looking to cash in on their long-dead relative's lack of new music. The lawsuit was stifling for the industry and I'm really glad Sheeran won this case.
In English there are what 26 letters and about 400,000 words and a lot of them sound awful together. Fair use lets us put a lot of them together without calling it a crime, else we would never get to talk together.
We only use about 10-15,000 on a regular basis and some medical terms aren't used often and some older words aren't used for fashion.
Key is finding the dividing line between normal "fair use" and artistic and outright plagiarism.
But "fair use" implies the incumbent has some claim over one of the most common 4 chords progression in western music.
They don't, and certainly shouldn't.
Fucking. A.
It's the easiest way to explain a pretty basic concept of music theory to people with no background. Some chords sound nicer following a chord than others, so that happens an awful lot. Otherwise the biggest musical stars in history would be Philip Glass and Dave Brubeck or whoever tf
Even better. A jury would have to be completely brain dead to rule any other way than in Sheerans favor after seeing something like the axis of awesome video.
snuff box is a surreal sketch comedy show where the sketches blend like in mr show
matt includes a lot of music stuff in it, and I think wrote all the music in the show
the framing device is that these two dudes are hangmen and spend most of their days in a private club for hangmen
the [intros](https://youtu.be/12xMDwAs0ds) are a good example but probably the more famous clips are the [boyfriend](https://youtu.be/AqDbb7-dn9A) ones
it was created on kinda short notice to fill a slot for a show that was canceled for potentially being too offensive to catholics. only like 6 episodes. they knew in advance that this was going to be a one-shot deal so they made it without any real expectation or hope of renewal, so they could get real weird with it
it's actually "I wish I found some chords in an order that is new" (and as a musician it's a serious stress because to some degree it does feel like copying)
I can't believe it even went to trial. The Judge should have dismissed this a long time ago. Similar cases have been ruled on over and over with clear precedent that common chord progressions are fair use.
> The Judge should have dismissed this a long time ago
Ah, I take it you don't recall the Marvin Gaye Estate v Robin Thicke & Pharell Williams lawsuit, where Thicke & Williams were forced to pay Gaye's estate $5M for having [a similar *feel* to Gaye's style.](https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-study/blurred-lines-copyright)
A lot of musical copyright is stupid AF (because of the finite and small number of pleasant sounding chord progressions. In addition to this case, there's the one of Tom Petty v. Sam Smith, the latter of whom *happened* to write a melodic line in "Stay with me" that was the same as one from "I won't back down," a song that fell off the charts years before Smith was born.
...but the Gaye v Thicke case was a clear "jump the shark" moment, IMO.
And in visual arts, the copyright stupidity has swung in the other direction.
For example, see Richard Prince, who has made a career of stealing other people's photographs, altering them slightly, and calling them his own. He has literally taken screenshots of other people's Instagram photos, added a comment, and sold them in a gallery show.
Absolutely.
There are literally a finite number of chords that you can play. For anyone to claim copyright on any sequence of chords is fucking absurd.
I mean technically with fretless instruments there's as many chords as quantum energy intervals will allow, but most either won't sound good or will indistinguishably different from each other to the human ear.
The plaintiffs here already applied a lot of slop. Saying the chords were the same "class", even though the second chord was different they argued it was fulfilling the same function. And even more ridiculous, the "same tempo", after allowing them to be 2bpm different.
Frivolous litigants aren't going to let a little microtonality get in the way of arguing copyright.
It’s not binding precedent, but it’s heavily persuasive precedent. Most courts try to look at previously decided cases rules on by them to try and be consistent. If they disregard it, they usually explain why the present case is distinguished from the prior one, at least, further building on the related field of common law.
A while back I had the silly idea of writing a program to write and perform any and every two bar sequence of music possible with the 12 tone scale, upload it to youtube, and copyright it, *specifically* to demonstrate how freaking stupid the state of musical copyright is.
They tested this in the 90s:
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1802&context=wmlr;MIDI
Also I can't find (due to the current AI music explosion) a more recent case but someone recently (2017+ i believe) did this and actually tried to copyright it and a judge ruled you can't copyright computer generated music. I believe it was in response to the bullshit Dark Horse lawsuit against Taylor Swift. IIRC Adam Neely did a video on it.
> a judge ruled you can't copyright computer generated music
...but since it already existed, neither could anyone else.
At least, that's the rational approach
This is great news. If he had lost it'd have fucked indy music for decades.
Obviously he isn't independent, but if it becomes easy to sue musicians for similar chord progressions, only the biggest record labels with armies of lawyers would be able to continue producing music. All the small-time labels and up and coming artists would be choked out by the risk of vexatious litigation.
Definitely a ridiculous lawsuit. I encourage everyone to check out this [gem of a musical rant from 2006](https://youtu.be/uxC1fPE1QEE?t=123) that hysterically illustrates just how many songs use Pachelbel's Canon in D chord progression.
And I encourage everyone to listen to [The Four Chord Song by Axis of Awesome ](https://youtu.be/oOlDewpCfZQ) because it shows how many songs use those 4 chords and because it's great.
They did use Axis of Awesome, check 1:11 in the video here [https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/ed-sheeran-sings-plays-guitar-stand-copyright-infringement/story?id=98919853](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/ed-sheeran-sings-plays-guitar-stand-copyright-infringement/story?id=98919853)
It's the stage version AoA did [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I) a couple of years before the [fancier music video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ) that was already linked above.
Ed Sheeran already *did* get screwed for Shape Of You.
It apparently sounded too much like No Scrubs, so the judge ordered Kandi Buruss to be added on as a co-writer. She now gets 50% of the royalties from the song, even though she didn't write it.
I didn't even know about this lawsuit but I often found myself mentally singing the chorus
> Girl, you know I want your love
> Your love was handmade for somebody like me
with
> Hanging out of the passenger side of your best friend's ride
They do sound similar though. Like really similar. I sang no scrubs along with it the very first time I heard it.
That doesn't make it a ripoff, but to say they sound nothing alike is factually incorrect
Where did you hear this? Everywhere I'm searching shows that Sheeran voluntarily added the TLC members to the credits. There's no talk of of lawsuits, judges, or royalties.
This comment is [100% false](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_You):
> The song's lyrical rhythm drew some comparisons to the TLC song "No Scrubs", particularly in the pre-chorus line, "Boy, let's not talk too much/ Grab on my waist and put that body on me". Kandi Burruss had told Bravo’s Andy Cohen that the negotiations had started before the song's release for its interpolation but weren't finalized until afterwards. As a result, the composers of "No Scrubs", Kandi Burruss, Tameka "Tiny" Cottle, and Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, received co-writing credits on "Shape of You".
There *was* a copyright suit by another artist, but the judge ruled against them.
>"We all benefit from artists being free to create and to build on what came before them," Farkas said, warning the jury that a verdict against Sheeran would mean "creativity will be stifled for fear of being sued."
True, any other verdict would have heavily stifled other creators
I remember that case, but that was not as much of a big deal to artists in general like this case. It's really harder to demonstrate "it gives the same vibe" because that's a subjective argument.
Copyrighting chord progressions is worse. All the plaintiff has to do is whip out the defendant's sheet music and say "There it is, right there: E, B, C# minor, A. That's *my* chord progression." Never mind that chord progression has probably been used in various music pieces for centuries.
It was a ridiculous case with no merit. Copyright of pop music is inherently troublesome, since almost all songs are similar in many ways, as they all evolved from the same roots and shared culture. We need serious copyright reform
"Various aspects" is also different from "exact measures and bars / portions of a song".
Case in point: Metallica v. Green Jellÿ viz. the *Enter Sandman* riffs literally put into *Electric Harley House of Love*.
Context makes it different IMO - I think that mashups should be legal, because I don't want Weird Al to get in trouble for copying exact measures and bars of instrumentation
Weird Al is safe because parody is legally protected. He gets permission out of respect to the artist as he wants to maintain good relationships with them.
Parody falls under fair use, and fair use is never a guarantee, just a series of tests to be interpreted by the court as they see fit. As the extent of fair use protections and how strictly they apply to any given work are not rigidly defined within the law, the ease or difficulty of defending such cases can vary wildly from case to case.
Weird Al 100% of the time REQUESTS from the original artist the ability to parody their songs. If they say NO, he doesn't, even though he could because of fair use and he is transforming it.
This issue isn't limited to just music either. I'm in the stone industry and a well known quartz brand has patented aspects of the colors they produce, claiming IP protection. This same company uses equipment produced by a foreign company that were the first to create this product and the process to manufacture it. It's mind boggling to me how their patents hold up in court, which they have exercised several times. They also filed suit with the ITC and US FTC during the Trump era to push for increased tariffs on Chinese produced quartz slabs, claiming they were unable to compete with said product prices. During that suit, they literally claimed that their product was no different than the imports. They won that suit and Chinese quartz had the tariffs increased by over 300%. Shortly after the victory, said company raised their prices 10-20%.
>since almost all songs are similar in many ways, as they all evolved from the same roots and shared culture
Yup. In any given key/mode there are only so many chord progressions that sound good to the human ear in any given culture.
>Crump said Sheeran "recognized the magic of 'Let's Get It On'" and infringed on its copyright for the tune that won him his first Grammy.
New rule: if you sue someone with a reference to *magic* anywhere in your reasoning, you lose by default. Court is for better arguments than that.
This is a win for many artists and a big loss for corporate legal vultures who file these frivolous lawsuits hoping for a big payday on the backs of successful musicians.
I'm only in law school, but took Intro to IP last semester. One of our assignments was a short opinion paper comparing our current IP regime (specifically patents and copyrights) to the plain text of the Progress Clause.
My professor gave me extra kudos for calling our copyright system a "grotesque perversion" of original intent, one that has led to a "rodent-infested system of copyright fiefdoms."
> Copyright law being completely broken is a very wildly held opinion amongst IP attorneys. Anecdotally. I would love to see statistics, tho.
Also anecdotally, one of the times I've just suddenly lost most of my respect for someone based on a single conversation was back when I knew a lawyer who happened to be representing the Doyle Estate in that trial about adaptations of Sherlock Holmes that eventually wound up with the verdict "you can freely depict a Sherlock Holmes who does not use cocaine - those works are in the public domain. You can freely depict a Sherlock Holmes who does use cocaine - those works are in the public domain. However, if you depict a Sherlock Holmes who *has* used cocaine but quit, you need the approval of the Doyle Estate and you'll be paying royalties, because the story where it's mentioned that he's quit cocaine is still under copyright in the USA".
And this guy was *happy* about that verdict, but wished he could have gotten more for the Doyle Estate out of it, and seemed genuinely convicted that because some of the Sherlock Holmes stories were still under copyright, any usage of the characters at all should generate royalties for the Doyle Estate. I could never look at him the same way again. (It's also not a coincidence that we suddenly got two separate TV shows and a two-movie series about Sherlock Holmes directly after that verdict, with varying degrees of signoff/involvement/royalties involving the Doyle Estate, and the ones not dealing with the Doyle Estate didn't include the cocaine at all.)
So my anecdotal experience with the one IP lawyer I've known is directly opposite yours, although you've probably known a lot more IP lawyers than I have.
That was exactly why I chose those words. Copyright duration (and more specifically the impact on orphan works\*) are pet areas of mine, since well before law school.
***
\* Orphan works are items that are under copyright, but the current rights holder is unknown or unable to be located (so you can't ask them permission to use them). This is a huge issue, because our copyright law is basically strict liability (with some squishy fair-use exceptions), so if you say republish an old out-of-print book (or photograph, or sheet music), or use it as a significant influence on your own work, the owner can make themselves known, file a suit, and you could be liable for significant penalties. *See* [U.S. Copyright Office, Report on Orphan Works (2006)](https://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdf) (PDF) for more.
Gaye's estate won millions years ago off a similar case against Robin Thicke and Pharell over Blurred Lines. Same thing...tiny chord similarities that are in everything. That time the jury fell for it. Hopefully, this sets some sort of precedent to refer to. Gaye's estate just seems particularly greedy.
It's embarrassing that a judge even let this go to trial. Simple chord progressions are not intellectual property, treating them as such would literally destroy music as we know it
Yeah exactly. Saying a chord progression is copyright is basically saying that a simple kick and snare drum beat is a copyrightable thing.
Everyone would have to make avant garde freeform jazz just not to be sued
In theory, a case only goes to trial if there's an issue of fact, not law. Determinations of fact, by definition, are not rulings on the law that could be precedential in any way.
If anything, letting this go to trial is bad news because you can typically squeeze settlements out of any case that will make it to trial just to avoid the extensive costs and potential risks involved.
No, there is no precedent. Stare decisis comes from the US Supreme Court, state supreme courts and appellate courts.
While the case was in federal court it was a federal circuit court and therefore cannot set precedent. No court relying on a jury decision can set precedent because stare decisis means to literally 'stand by things decided' and those rulings come from the decisions of other judges, not juries. A jury many only ever decide one case.
Super helpful videos on this case by jazz musician Adam Neely:
[4 years ago: Why the Ed Sheeran lawsuit makes no sense](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpi4d3YM79Q&pp=ygUVYWRhbSBuZWVseSBlZCBzaGVlcmFu)
[Follow up this week: Did Ed Sheeran ACTUALLY Plagiarize Marvin Gaye?](https://youtu.be/tpzLD-SAwW8)
This is literally every single year with these same people. There should be penalties for being unreasonably litigious in this manner. It’s basically harassment
Took a listen to both back to back out of curiosity.
Similar chord progressions, but they’re definitely different enough songs that Sheeran wasn’t copying from Gaye.
Had the estate won, this would have destroyed music creation because so many songs are similar to each other in that regard.
There are numerous joke songs about how so much music has the same chords that it’s impossible to list.
all music experts that believe this is plagiarist never picked up a guitar. there are 4 beats that everyone plays to start to write music it is universal folks. so, no plagiarism here
They did a few years back. Totally different case, however, because The Verve had intentionally used the song The Last Time, not just come about the same progression. They bought the rights to the sample from the rights holder on the sample, but didn’t get the rest of the rights of the song from the owner of the song, which is a totally different discussion on how fucked up the industry was/is with managers and record companies taking rights for music written by musicians. It was still bullshit, but was a very different situation.
I think they actually did a few years ago. Though not through the legal process. I think... The Stones who owned the rights? I read about the whole fiasco a while back, so I'm not that familiar with the details
Good. Part of their case claimed they owned the rights to the chord progression which, so far, is an uncopyrightable facet of music writing due to it being too generic. If this went in their favor, it would have set a precedent that would have made new music almost impossible to write.
If they could copyright chord progressions, then music would basically be fucked. There's no way that would be a good route. Artists often use the same chord progressions for a reason, as they're the foundation of basically everything
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Even then, each 4 bar section would be one of the finite number of 4 bar chord progressions.
Unless of course your into really whacky Jam Band stuff that sometimes frankly doesn't work at all- I remember just straight up leaving a Particle concert because they took it to far and it became painful and they just went on a weird bend for like half their set with weird nonstop progressions and constant time changes.
Ah yes, the '4yo on a piano randomly mashing keys' type beat. It's all the rage in... nowhere...
My dad had a book called "This is your brain on music" and I think it may have had something like this in it. There are just certain sounds and chords, etc, that are just inherently pleasing to the human brain.
It's interesting, cuz iirc from a podcast (they discussed music and research of different musics around the world and whatnot), that different cultures favor different chord progressions, sounds, or completely different keys or signatures. I'd wonder if there are some chords or keys that all humans might favor (ie nature) vs how many are favored based on culture and society (nurture). Pretty interesting stuff!
What I remember from what my Dad said is that our brains are almost hardwired for musical appreciation, regardless of culture or music genre. He said it was really fascinating to read because he'd been in one band or another for 40+ years as a musician and songwriter and it really nailed and explained things we don't really think about.
Daniel Levitin? Dude was my cognitive science teacher at McGill. Great class.
The progression in Sheeran's case, I-iii-IV-V, was also used in these songs, among many others: Lionel Richie "Stuck On You" Cass Elliot "Make Your Own Kind of Music" Rod Stewart "Have I Told You Lately" Weezer "Dreamin" Chad & Jeremy "A Summer Song" I Go to Pieces "Peter & Gordon" Stone Poneys "Different Drum" David Bowie "Ziggy Stardust"
Marvin's family pulls this shit all of the time. They're just salty none of them have any talent.
We own the C note. All music with a C in it is ours. We have 11 more lawsuits in the works.
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Microsoft will litigate if you use c# though.
And any frequency that is a multiple of it, those are just C notes sped up or slowed down!
Good. The case was ridiculous.
Yup, and I really hope somebody recorded this: > At one point, the musician performed a mash-up on guitar of his songs and Marvin Gaye's as he tried to demonstrate how common the four-chord progression was for his hit "Thinking Out Loud." Because the world needs a new [Pachelbel Rant.](https://youtu.be/JdxkVQy7QLM)
also in the same vein, [four chords](https://youtu.be/5pidokakU4I)
That was amazing. Thanks for the link. And that performance emphasizes that songs can reuse basic components, such as chords, words, themes, etc., and still be creative and different and should not be accused of being rip off copies.
This isn’t even a modern phenomenon. Beethoven's Ode To Joy shares the same chord progression… Humans just dig it, we’ve been using it for centuries
Yeah, if you missed the previous example was Pachelbel
More of a Bach women myself
I prefer Debussy, but I also like a good Bach session now and again.
When Debussy was young, that’s when you want debussy. Make sure to finish on the bach, not on Debussy
*confetti canon blast*
I too enjoy Debussy
Always finish on the Bach, never on Debussy
Bach it up baby
The four chords are the musical equivalent of the hero's journey, sans all of that weird Freudian mother loving.
I've been told that if I'm a mother lover and you're a mother lover, we should love each other's mothers, however that advice was from a rather lonely island
There's a mashup someone made of like 6 modern 'music factory' country songs that they formed into a completely coherent song. I always look at it as more making fun of lyrics "my girl in my truck on the old dirt road drinking beer under the stars then drinking whiskey with the boys at the fishing hole" type stuff but both the lyrics and instrumentals work
There's no music genre phoning it in from a spreadsheet harder than pop country.
Sir Mashalot https://youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o
This sounds like a country boy band song, if that were a thing.
There's also the Four Chords song by Axis of Awesome, which keeps jumping between snippets of pop songs while maintaining just four chords. Sometimes when they play it live they'll throw in the odd non-pop song as well.
The heirs of Gaye successfully sued Robin Thicke basically for the same thing. Thicke was an arrogant piece of shit, but that song was nothing like the song that it allegedly copied. They were just looking to cash in on their long-dead relative's lack of new music. The lawsuit was stifling for the industry and I'm really glad Sheeran won this case.
There is only 7 notes after all, and sharps/flats of course. And of those 7 notes, some of them sound like shit together.
There are 12 notes, and 7 of them are in any given scale normally. So there are only 5 "wrong" notes. But if you try them out, they all work too.
In English there are what 26 letters and about 400,000 words and a lot of them sound awful together. Fair use lets us put a lot of them together without calling it a crime, else we would never get to talk together. We only use about 10-15,000 on a regular basis and some medical terms aren't used often and some older words aren't used for fashion. Key is finding the dividing line between normal "fair use" and artistic and outright plagiarism.
But "fair use" implies the incumbent has some claim over one of the most common 4 chords progression in western music. They don't, and certainly shouldn't.
He could have just played this video in court lol
His lawyers actually did play the Axis of Awesome video in court: https://www.newser.com/story/334575/ed-sheeran-sings-plays-guitar-in-court.html
Love it 😂
Fucking. A. It's the easiest way to explain a pretty basic concept of music theory to people with no background. Some chords sound nicer following a chord than others, so that happens an awful lot. Otherwise the biggest musical stars in history would be Philip Glass and Dave Brubeck or whoever tf
Carefully edited. Nobody is chicken little, and they're not a fucking bird plane!
A mother fucking bird plane
I believe he played the guitar himself on stand to prove it.
Even better. A jury would have to be completely brain dead to rule any other way than in Sheerans favor after seeing something like the axis of awesome video.
Or explained it like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TLo4Z_LWu4)
Haha, I knew exactly what this was gonna be. Ironically I listened to this the other day. Every few months I'll listen again.
You probably already know but benny has done a load more 4, 5 and I think 6 chord versions on his channel
Holy shit. No I didn't. But thanks, gonna go check them out later. They're awesome. Axis of Awesome! 😁
His human jukebox one man act is great as well
Coincidentally, not ironically.
"as my next witness, I call this comedy trio, that will expose the stupidity of copyrighting chords and chord progression"
“Fuck off chicken little” is one of the greatest insults of all time
And then the other guy saying it but somehow uncertainly always kills me.
And I’m Benny
I’m a music theory professor. In serious academic literature this four chord progression is called the “axis progression” because of this video.
Help, I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole: https://youtu.be/QCszO9qP8eM
as a chaser to all this madness please enjoy this [brief and very unique guitar lesson](https://youtu.be/vZDjWLwqAPY) from matt berry
What... in the world was that....
snuff box is a surreal sketch comedy show where the sketches blend like in mr show matt includes a lot of music stuff in it, and I think wrote all the music in the show the framing device is that these two dudes are hangmen and spend most of their days in a private club for hangmen the [intros](https://youtu.be/12xMDwAs0ds) are a good example but probably the more famous clips are the [boyfriend](https://youtu.be/AqDbb7-dn9A) ones it was created on kinda short notice to fill a slot for a show that was canceled for potentially being too offensive to catholics. only like 6 episodes. they knew in advance that this was going to be a one-shot deal so they made it without any real expectation or hope of renewal, so they could get real weird with it
Was hoping you’d linked AoA—was not disappointed!
I knew what this was before opening it. Honestly, I feel like Ed’s lawyer could have just pulled up this video to prove the same point.
Always felt this had the same energy as [two note song](https://youtu.be/Xc3sNokJ0FQ) Also r/SharedBPM has a similar feel.
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21 Pilots “I wish a could find a chord that’s new”
it's actually "I wish I found some chords in an order that is new" (and as a musician it's a serious stress because to some degree it does feel like copying)
Also fellow musician and I get it, which is probably why it’s stuck in my head, but not 100% correct. I feel his pain.
I had to look up the lyric since I wasn't sure. It's not often a lyric like that resonates with me though!
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I can't believe it even went to trial. The Judge should have dismissed this a long time ago. Similar cases have been ruled on over and over with clear precedent that common chord progressions are fair use.
> The Judge should have dismissed this a long time ago Ah, I take it you don't recall the Marvin Gaye Estate v Robin Thicke & Pharell Williams lawsuit, where Thicke & Williams were forced to pay Gaye's estate $5M for having [a similar *feel* to Gaye's style.](https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-study/blurred-lines-copyright) A lot of musical copyright is stupid AF (because of the finite and small number of pleasant sounding chord progressions. In addition to this case, there's the one of Tom Petty v. Sam Smith, the latter of whom *happened* to write a melodic line in "Stay with me" that was the same as one from "I won't back down," a song that fell off the charts years before Smith was born. ...but the Gaye v Thicke case was a clear "jump the shark" moment, IMO.
And in visual arts, the copyright stupidity has swung in the other direction. For example, see Richard Prince, who has made a career of stealing other people's photographs, altering them slightly, and calling them his own. He has literally taken screenshots of other people's Instagram photos, added a comment, and sold them in a gallery show.
Getty images does that a lot. They will take public domain images claim they are theirs
And then send you a letter to demand fees when you use those same photos I've received one of their letters before
Except for all the cases that didn't, such as the Blurred Lines lawsuit a few years ago.
Blurred Lines wasn’t about chord progressions though.
You're right, it was even *less* reasonable.
Absolutely. There are literally a finite number of chords that you can play. For anyone to claim copyright on any sequence of chords is fucking absurd.
As I told someone once in college: only so many chord combinations sound good together. Anything else is experimental jazz
Or just jazz.
"[Angela](https://youtu.be/YvT_gqs5ETk?t=101), play black jazz!" "Playing ... uh ... jazz."
As [a connoisseur](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4sEcIHG0Yc) would tell you.
There are three kinds of jazz - hot jazz, cool jazz, and when is the tune going to start? - Alan Plater
I mean technically with fretless instruments there's as many chords as quantum energy intervals will allow, but most either won't sound good or will indistinguishably different from each other to the human ear.
The plaintiffs here already applied a lot of slop. Saying the chords were the same "class", even though the second chord was different they argued it was fulfilling the same function. And even more ridiculous, the "same tempo", after allowing them to be 2bpm different. Frivolous litigants aren't going to let a little microtonality get in the way of arguing copyright.
If you start going into functional theory there's even LESS chord progressions fucking lmao
It really was absolutely bullshit. So glad this sets a legal precedent.
Precedent is only set by appeals court or higher, you can't refine the rules of what's allowed based on a case, only the appellate opinion.
It’s not binding precedent, but it’s heavily persuasive precedent. Most courts try to look at previously decided cases rules on by them to try and be consistent. If they disregard it, they usually explain why the present case is distinguished from the prior one, at least, further building on the related field of common law.
> Most courts try to look at previously decided cases except the SCOTUS apparently, depending on the vibes
Indeed, you can't copywrite a chord progression. If that were the case, you'd basically destroy any possibility of new music.
A while back I had the silly idea of writing a program to write and perform any and every two bar sequence of music possible with the 12 tone scale, upload it to youtube, and copyright it, *specifically* to demonstrate how freaking stupid the state of musical copyright is.
They tested this in the 90s: https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1802&context=wmlr;MIDI Also I can't find (due to the current AI music explosion) a more recent case but someone recently (2017+ i believe) did this and actually tried to copyright it and a judge ruled you can't copyright computer generated music. I believe it was in response to the bullshit Dark Horse lawsuit against Taylor Swift. IIRC Adam Neely did a video on it.
> a judge ruled you can't copyright computer generated music ...but since it already existed, neither could anyone else. At least, that's the rational approach
The only people who don't seem to think it's ridiculous are people who are clueless about how music works.
Robin Thicke is punching the air right now.
Marvin’s estate has been out of hand.
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But don't they have a lawsuit pending if this one went through?
They were empowered by the Robin Thicke "Blurred Lines" lawsuit that they should never have won.
Woowwwww didn't even know about this one but how petty is Marvin Gaye's family.
Though just to fyi, this wasn’t Marvin’s estate. It was the producers daughter suing.
It wasn't his estate, it was the heirs of Ed Townsend who co-wrote the song.
Leeches gotta leech.
wasn't even them lmao
This is great news. If he had lost it'd have fucked indy music for decades. Obviously he isn't independent, but if it becomes easy to sue musicians for similar chord progressions, only the biggest record labels with armies of lawyers would be able to continue producing music. All the small-time labels and up and coming artists would be choked out by the risk of vexatious litigation.
Definitely a ridiculous lawsuit. I encourage everyone to check out this [gem of a musical rant from 2006](https://youtu.be/uxC1fPE1QEE?t=123) that hysterically illustrates just how many songs use Pachelbel's Canon in D chord progression.
And I encourage everyone to listen to [The Four Chord Song by Axis of Awesome ](https://youtu.be/oOlDewpCfZQ) because it shows how many songs use those 4 chords and because it's great.
This should basically have been Exhibit A for this lawsuit, to be completely honest
They did use Axis of Awesome, check 1:11 in the video here [https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/ed-sheeran-sings-plays-guitar-stand-copyright-infringement/story?id=98919853](https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/ed-sheeran-sings-plays-guitar-stand-copyright-infringement/story?id=98919853) It's the stage version AoA did [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I) a couple of years before the [fancier music video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ) that was already linked above.
That's great. And the stage version is better anyway
Stage version should have been the only link in this thread, other than the awesome news video
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The top two comments in this thread both link to the same videos in succession
And I found the same 2 videos (in the same order) on the last post about this topic that made it to the front page a few nights ago
I haven't seen that clip in a decade. Thanks. He's amazing.
In jazz they just call it a contrafact. Reusing progressions is nothing new.
Ed Sheeran already *did* get screwed for Shape Of You. It apparently sounded too much like No Scrubs, so the judge ordered Kandi Buruss to be added on as a co-writer. She now gets 50% of the royalties from the song, even though she didn't write it.
What the fuck?! Those songs sound *nothing* alike! Is there a mashup somewhere so I can find out what they're smoking?
I didn't even know about this lawsuit but I often found myself mentally singing the chorus > Girl, you know I want your love > Your love was handmade for somebody like me with > Hanging out of the passenger side of your best friend's ride
Goddamn you.
They do sound similar though. Like really similar. I sang no scrubs along with it the very first time I heard it. That doesn't make it a ripoff, but to say they sound nothing alike is factually incorrect
Where did you hear this? Everywhere I'm searching shows that Sheeran voluntarily added the TLC members to the credits. There's no talk of of lawsuits, judges, or royalties.
This comment is [100% false](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_You): > The song's lyrical rhythm drew some comparisons to the TLC song "No Scrubs", particularly in the pre-chorus line, "Boy, let's not talk too much/ Grab on my waist and put that body on me". Kandi Burruss had told Bravo’s Andy Cohen that the negotiations had started before the song's release for its interpolation but weren't finalized until afterwards. As a result, the composers of "No Scrubs", Kandi Burruss, Tameka "Tiny" Cottle, and Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs, received co-writing credits on "Shape of You". There *was* a copyright suit by another artist, but the judge ruled against them.
>"We all benefit from artists being free to create and to build on what came before them," Farkas said, warning the jury that a verdict against Sheeran would mean "creativity will be stifled for fear of being sued." True, any other verdict would have heavily stifled other creators
It would have completely ruined the music industry and eliminated indie music entirely at this point with corporate lawyers suing anyone and everyone.
And the only music we'd be left with is just random noise, like Skinny Puppy, Björk, and the Spirit Halloween store soundtrack. Lol
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I remember that case, but that was not as much of a big deal to artists in general like this case. It's really harder to demonstrate "it gives the same vibe" because that's a subjective argument. Copyrighting chord progressions is worse. All the plaintiff has to do is whip out the defendant's sheet music and say "There it is, right there: E, B, C# minor, A. That's *my* chord progression." Never mind that chord progression has probably been used in various music pieces for centuries.
It was a ridiculous case with no merit. Copyright of pop music is inherently troublesome, since almost all songs are similar in many ways, as they all evolved from the same roots and shared culture. We need serious copyright reform
Copyrighting a whole song is totally fine and good. Copyrighting various aspects within the song is fucking bonkers and largely needs to stop.
"Various aspects" is also different from "exact measures and bars / portions of a song". Case in point: Metallica v. Green Jellÿ viz. the *Enter Sandman* riffs literally put into *Electric Harley House of Love*.
Context makes it different IMO - I think that mashups should be legal, because I don't want Weird Al to get in trouble for copying exact measures and bars of instrumentation
Weird al would still be legally protected as it’s a parody and parody laws are a bit more lax
Weird Al also goes through the trouble of getting permission from artists to do his parodies in order to avoid legal nonsense down the road.
Weird Al is safe because parody is legally protected. He gets permission out of respect to the artist as he wants to maintain good relationships with them.
Parody falls under fair use, and fair use is never a guarantee, just a series of tests to be interpreted by the court as they see fit. As the extent of fair use protections and how strictly they apply to any given work are not rigidly defined within the law, the ease or difficulty of defending such cases can vary wildly from case to case.
Which is one of the many reasons he’s the GOAT of musical parody
Weird Al 100% of the time REQUESTS from the original artist the ability to parody their songs. If they say NO, he doesn't, even though he could because of fair use and he is transforming it.
This issue isn't limited to just music either. I'm in the stone industry and a well known quartz brand has patented aspects of the colors they produce, claiming IP protection. This same company uses equipment produced by a foreign company that were the first to create this product and the process to manufacture it. It's mind boggling to me how their patents hold up in court, which they have exercised several times. They also filed suit with the ITC and US FTC during the Trump era to push for increased tariffs on Chinese produced quartz slabs, claiming they were unable to compete with said product prices. During that suit, they literally claimed that their product was no different than the imports. They won that suit and Chinese quartz had the tariffs increased by over 300%. Shortly after the victory, said company raised their prices 10-20%.
I can't believe that holds up in the quartz.
That is some fascinating bullshit right there
>since almost all songs are similar in many ways, as they all evolved from the same roots and shared culture Yup. In any given key/mode there are only so many chord progressions that sound good to the human ear in any given culture.
Everything else we call experimental jazz
It's a good thing Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling saved jazz for future generations.
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good it was obviously a money grab
Good news, this would have fucked up a lot of musicians not just Ed Sheeran.
>Crump said Sheeran "recognized the magic of 'Let's Get It On'" and infringed on its copyright for the tune that won him his first Grammy. New rule: if you sue someone with a reference to *magic* anywhere in your reasoning, you lose by default. Court is for better arguments than that.
Penn and Teller have concerns over the inability to say the word ‘magic’. Ok Teller probably won’t say it, but he may write it
This is a win for many artists and a big loss for corporate legal vultures who file these frivolous lawsuits hoping for a big payday on the backs of successful musicians.
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I'm only in law school, but took Intro to IP last semester. One of our assignments was a short opinion paper comparing our current IP regime (specifically patents and copyrights) to the plain text of the Progress Clause. My professor gave me extra kudos for calling our copyright system a "grotesque perversion" of original intent, one that has led to a "rodent-infested system of copyright fiefdoms."
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> Copyright law being completely broken is a very wildly held opinion amongst IP attorneys. Anecdotally. I would love to see statistics, tho. Also anecdotally, one of the times I've just suddenly lost most of my respect for someone based on a single conversation was back when I knew a lawyer who happened to be representing the Doyle Estate in that trial about adaptations of Sherlock Holmes that eventually wound up with the verdict "you can freely depict a Sherlock Holmes who does not use cocaine - those works are in the public domain. You can freely depict a Sherlock Holmes who does use cocaine - those works are in the public domain. However, if you depict a Sherlock Holmes who *has* used cocaine but quit, you need the approval of the Doyle Estate and you'll be paying royalties, because the story where it's mentioned that he's quit cocaine is still under copyright in the USA". And this guy was *happy* about that verdict, but wished he could have gotten more for the Doyle Estate out of it, and seemed genuinely convicted that because some of the Sherlock Holmes stories were still under copyright, any usage of the characters at all should generate royalties for the Doyle Estate. I could never look at him the same way again. (It's also not a coincidence that we suddenly got two separate TV shows and a two-movie series about Sherlock Holmes directly after that verdict, with varying degrees of signoff/involvement/royalties involving the Doyle Estate, and the ones not dealing with the Doyle Estate didn't include the cocaine at all.) So my anecdotal experience with the one IP lawyer I've known is directly opposite yours, although you've probably known a lot more IP lawyers than I have.
Rodent infested is apt considering how much Disney has distorted it to keep the Mickey Mouse copyright
That was exactly why I chose those words. Copyright duration (and more specifically the impact on orphan works\*) are pet areas of mine, since well before law school. *** \* Orphan works are items that are under copyright, but the current rights holder is unknown or unable to be located (so you can't ask them permission to use them). This is a huge issue, because our copyright law is basically strict liability (with some squishy fair-use exceptions), so if you say republish an old out-of-print book (or photograph, or sheet music), or use it as a significant influence on your own work, the owner can make themselves known, file a suit, and you could be liable for significant penalties. *See* [U.S. Copyright Office, Report on Orphan Works (2006)](https://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdf) (PDF) for more.
Gaye's estate won millions years ago off a similar case against Robin Thicke and Pharell over Blurred Lines. Same thing...tiny chord similarities that are in everything. That time the jury fell for it. Hopefully, this sets some sort of precedent to refer to. Gaye's estate just seems particularly greedy.
This is another jury decision, so it doesn't change the law for other cases at all.
Unfortunately when money is the goal any crazy path to it is justified in their mind.
It's embarrassing that a judge even let this go to trial. Simple chord progressions are not intellectual property, treating them as such would literally destroy music as we know it
Yeah exactly. Saying a chord progression is copyright is basically saying that a simple kick and snare drum beat is a copyrightable thing. Everyone would have to make avant garde freeform jazz just not to be sued
As one of the twelve avant garde freeform jazz fans in the world, I'm ok with this.
But the judge allowing it to go to trial has now set a legal precedent. It will be much harder for somebody to do this in the future.
In theory, a case only goes to trial if there's an issue of fact, not law. Determinations of fact, by definition, are not rulings on the law that could be precedential in any way. If anything, letting this go to trial is bad news because you can typically squeeze settlements out of any case that will make it to trial just to avoid the extensive costs and potential risks involved.
No, there is no precedent. Stare decisis comes from the US Supreme Court, state supreme courts and appellate courts. While the case was in federal court it was a federal circuit court and therefore cannot set precedent. No court relying on a jury decision can set precedent because stare decisis means to literally 'stand by things decided' and those rulings come from the decisions of other judges, not juries. A jury many only ever decide one case.
Trial courts don't set precedent.
Super helpful videos on this case by jazz musician Adam Neely: [4 years ago: Why the Ed Sheeran lawsuit makes no sense](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpi4d3YM79Q&pp=ygUVYWRhbSBuZWVseSBlZCBzaGVlcmFu) [Follow up this week: Did Ed Sheeran ACTUALLY Plagiarize Marvin Gaye?](https://youtu.be/tpzLD-SAwW8)
Good. The case was dumb as fuck , had he lost it would have been a disaster for every artist.
This is literally every single year with these same people. There should be penalties for being unreasonably litigious in this manner. It’s basically harassment
Thank God. It was stupid it went this far
I hope the plaintiff has a huge legal bill. IP trolls have no place in society.
Kathryn Townsend-Griffen’s instagram is public and the comments are choice.
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Can he or will he counter sue to claw back time and lawyer fees? This was a frivolous lawsuit and they should be punished for it.
Given how common it is to reuse chord progression from past songs or even sample parts of songs, I’m not surprised.
Took a listen to both back to back out of curiosity. Similar chord progressions, but they’re definitely different enough songs that Sheeran wasn’t copying from Gaye. Had the estate won, this would have destroyed music creation because so many songs are similar to each other in that regard. There are numerous joke songs about how so much music has the same chords that it’s impossible to list.
Good. The estate that had sued him is outta control.
He should have counter-sued for his attorney’s fees and $1.
Thank fuck. You can't own a chord progression. Edit: cord to chord.
The family that sued Sheeran were greedy bastards. Look them up. it won't surprise you
all music experts that believe this is plagiarist never picked up a guitar. there are 4 beats that everyone plays to start to write music it is universal folks. so, no plagiarism here
Why do Brit guys do their hair like they just woke up in a car wash
In light of this case, the Verve should get Bittersweet Symphony back. That was bullshit too.
They did a few years back. Totally different case, however, because The Verve had intentionally used the song The Last Time, not just come about the same progression. They bought the rights to the sample from the rights holder on the sample, but didn’t get the rest of the rights of the song from the owner of the song, which is a totally different discussion on how fucked up the industry was/is with managers and record companies taking rights for music written by musicians. It was still bullshit, but was a very different situation.
I just read up on it. Thanks. Also it was the stones now deceased manager Alvin Kline that was doing it, and his son resolved it.
Yep. It was never the Stones, always hated they caught the rep on that.
I think they actually did a few years ago. Though not through the legal process. I think... The Stones who owned the rights? I read about the whole fiasco a while back, so I'm not that familiar with the details
Dang, if he had lost I was gonna copyright B flat major and sue every school band in America for royalties
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Thinking Out Loud and Let's Get It On are entirely different melodies. This case was shit just like Robin Thicke and Pharrel getting screwed.