{"id":3183,"date":"2024-11-01T17:59:26","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T17:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ed-sheeran-beats-lets-get-it-on-copyright-case-at-appeals-court\/"},"modified":"2024-11-01T17:59:26","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T17:59:26","slug":"ed-sheeran-beats-lets-get-it-on-copyright-case-at-appeals-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ed-sheeran-beats-lets-get-it-on-copyright-case-at-appeals-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Ed Sheeran Beats ‘Let’s Get It On’ Copyright Case at Appeals Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tEd Sheeran\u2019s \u201cThinking Out Loud\u201d did not infringe the copyright to Marvin Gaye\u2018s \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On,\u201d a federal appeals court ruled Friday (Nov. 1), saying the two songs share only \u201cfundamental musical building blocks\u201d that cannot be owned by any single songwriter.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a ruling issued more than a decade after Sheeran\u2019s chart-topping hit was first released, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected an infringement lawsuit filed by Structured Asset Sales, a company that owns a small stake in the rights to Gaye\u2019s song.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case argued that Sheeran\u2019s song copied a chord progression and rhythm from Gaye\u2019s, but the appeals court said the lawsuit was essentially seeking \u201ca monopoly over a combination of two fundamental musical building blocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe four-chord progression at issue\u2014ubiquitous in pop music\u2014even coupled with a syncopated harmonic rhythm, is too well-explored to meet the originality threshold that copyright law demands,\u201d a panel of appeals court judges wrote. \u201cOverprotecting such basic elements would threaten to stifle creativity and undermine the purpose of copyright law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLooking at the two songs more broadly, the Second Circuit also ruled that Sheeran\u2019s track was clearly not similar enough to Gaye\u2019s to amount to copyright infringement: \u201cNeither the melody nor the lyrics of \u2018Thinking Out\u2019 Loud bears any resemblance to those in \u2018Let\u2019s Get It On.\u2019 Undeniable and obvious differences exist between them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSheeran has faced multiple lawsuits over \u201cThinking,\u201d a 2014 track co-written with Amy Wadge that reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and ultimately spent 46 weeks on the chart. He was first sued by the daughter of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the famed 1973 tune with Gaye. That case ended in a high-profile trial last year, resulting in a jury verdict that cleared Sheeran of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case decided on Friday is a separate lawsuit filed by SAS, an entity owned by industry executive David Pullman<\/strong> that controls a different one-third stake in Townsend\u2019s copyrights \u2014 meaning a one-ninth stake in the rights to Gaye\u2019s iconic track. In May, weeks after the big jury verdict, a federal judge tossed out the SAS lawsuit, ruling that it was seeking an \u201cimpermissible monopoly over a basic musical building block.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn upholding that decision on Friday, the Second Circuit echoed the earlier ruling\u2019s concern about overprotecting copyrights and threatening future songwriting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe chord progression and harmonic rhythm at issue in the case are \u201cgarden variety\u201d elements that had been used in numerous songs, the appeals court said, pointing to evidence that they had appeared in \u201cGeorgy Girl\u201d by The Seekers and \u201cSince I Lost My Baby\u201d by The Temptations \u2014 two tracks that predated Gaye\u2019s song by years. The appeals court noted that there is a \u201climited number of notes and chords available\u201d and that \u201ccommon themes frequently reappear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the field of popular songs, many, if not most, compositions bear some similarity to prior songs,\u201d the court wrote, quoting from a treatise on copyright law. \u201cSo while a similar chord progression and harmonic rhythm may create a similar sound and feel, that is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ruling is a major victory for Sheeran, but the battle over \u201cThinking\u201d isn\u2019t quite over yet. SAS also has another lawsuit against Sheeran pending, advancing an unorthodox effort to cite a more expansive copyright covering the sound recording to \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On\u201d rather than the written music. That case has been paused while the earlier lawsuit played out.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to Billboard <\/em>following Friday\u2019s decision, SAS owner Pullman criticized the appeals court for citing \u201ctwo songs out of over 60 million registered songs\u201d in its analysis. And he stressed that the decision had not addressed his company\u2019s arguments relying on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision about federal regulatory power.<\/p>\n

\n\tSheeran\u2019s attorney, Donald Zakarin<\/strong> of the law firm Pryor Cashman, told Billboard <\/em>that he and his clients were \u201cgratified\u201d by the court\u2019s ruling: \u201cThis ruling is consistent with the jury\u2019s rejection of any claim of infringement in the [earlier] case, finding that Ed and Amy independently created \u2018Thinking Out Loud.’\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Sheeran\u2019s \u201cThinking Out Loud\u201d did not infringe the copyright to Marvin Gaye\u2018s \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On,\u201d a federal appeals court ruled Friday (Nov. 1), saying the two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[782,1091,294,429,143,4000,3999],"class_list":["post-3183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-appeals","tag-beats","tag-case","tag-copyright","tag-court","tag-lets","tag-sheeran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}