(June 29, 2018) Another day, another plagiarism lawsuit. According to TMZ, a company called Structured Asset Sales (wow, that’s a cozy name), which previously purchased rights to Marvin Gaye’s soul music classic, “Let’s Get It On,” has sued pop star Ed Sheeran, claiming that his smash hit “Thinking Out Loud” is a bit too similar to “Let’s Get It On,” and that Sheeran should pay $100 million dollars to the company in royalties.
When Gaye’s estate successfully sued Robin Thicke, et al, a few years ago, claiming Thicke misappropriated “Got To Give It Up,” and then Mark Ronson was similarly sued by multiple parties for his hit “Uptown Funk,” it became clear that this was going to be a thing. And now we’re coming out of the other end with more days in court for successful modern day artists.
(June 29, 2018) Another day, another plagiarism lawsuit. According to TMZ, a company called Structured Asset Sales (wow, that’s a cozy name), which previously purchased rights to Marvin Gaye’s soul music classic, “Let’s Get It On,” has sued pop star Ed Sheeran, claiming that his smash hit “Thinking Out Loud” is a bit too similar to “Let’s Get It On,” and that Sheeran should pay $100 million dollars to the company in royalties.
When Gaye’s estate successfully sued Robin Thicke, et al, a few years ago, claiming Thicke misappropriated “Got To Give It Up,” and then Mark Ronson was similarly sued by multiple parties for his hit “Uptown Funk,” it became clear that this was going to be a thing. And now we’re coming out of the other end with more days in court for successful modern day artists.
Don’t expect an end to these lawsuits any time soon. There ain’t 3,000 chords to choose from, so there can’t help but be some similarities between songs now and then. But there is a big difference, in our view, between “some similarity” and misappropriation. Our fear is that this hyper litigation, typically led by people or organizations who didn’t actually write the songs themselves, will go on for years to come, and could have a chilling effect on music and on the success of current artists.
Check out the two songs in question below, and tell us what you think.