Comment: What Ed Sheeran鈥檚 copyright court case win means Published on: 11 May 2023 Writing for The Conversation, Dr Adam Behr discusses the background, context and implications of the recent Ed Sheeran copyright case. , Ed Sheeran came out swinging in his statement after a New York court found in his favour last week over a claim that his 2014 song infringed copyright in Marvin Gaye鈥檚 hit . He called suits like the one brought by the estate of Gaye鈥檚 co-writer Ed Townshend 鈥渂aseless鈥� and pointed to the : I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake 鈥� I want to thank the jury for making a decision that will help to protect the creative process of songwriters here in the United States and around the world 鈥� These claims need to be stopped so that the creative process can carry on, and we can all just go back to making music. It wasn鈥檛 his first time facing , copyright suits being a common professional hazard. As the old industry maxim states, . So why did Sheeran allude to benefits for songwriters at large from this verdict? A multifaceted legal mechanism Copyright is complex, with numerous points of potential dispute across different aspects of the musical work in question. First, it is not a single, indivisible legal mechanism. There is copyright in the underlying work 鈥� the composition 鈥� and copyright in the recording of that work. Where a song has been sampled without permission, for example, the recording copyright has been infringed. When Sean Coombs failed to secure clearance for a sample from The Police鈥檚 Every Breath You Take in I鈥檒l Be Missing You, he ceded royalties to Sting. The relationship between composition and its realisation in recording has also been contentious, especially for songs put together in the studio by bands, where verbal agreements between the members come into play. Members of Spandau Ballet like vocal delivery and saxophone solos merited a portion of songwriter Gary Kemp鈥檚 royalties. They were unsuccessful, although Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, former drummer and bassist in The Smiths, from Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr. Intra-band disputes, however, don鈥檛 speak to the purpose of copyright in the same way as plagiarism suits. At issue for Sheeran was what counts as protectible under copyright. Lyrics and melody have traditionally been the core musical features that enjoyed copyright protection. So when session singer Clare Torry won an out-of-court settlement from Pink Floyd over her vocal improvisation on , her claim pertained to the 鈥渢op-line melody鈥� being her creation. Likewise, George Harrison鈥檚 was found in 1976 to have infringed The Chiffons鈥� , because there was a substantive passage in both songs where the melody was the same, and Harrison could viably be claimed to have been aware of the prior song. It wasn鈥檛 even deemed necessary for the copying to have been deliberate 鈥� the court acknowledged that plagiarism took place 鈥溾��. Protecting past originality and future creativity The purpose of identifying copyrightable features of compositions is to incentivise creators, allowing them to profit from their originality. Simultaneously, though, copyright was designed to benefit society by facilitating a common creative culture through a body of work in the public domain that others can draw on. This is why it is in both time (how long a work remains under copyright) and scope (the specific elements that are protected). The in the Sheeran case, according to the plaintiff鈥檚 legal team, was a and demonstrating a shared a . Sheeran鈥檚 defence claimed that such chord sequences are not protectible but, rather, the common currency of songwriting. As he showed in court, and as widely illustrated by musical and comedy performances, innumerable songs share such chord sequences. Given this shared musical language and the constraints of popular music, like genre conventions or song length, a degree of similarity doesn鈥檛 automatically imply plagiarism. What鈥檚 more, musicians from the huge body of work that precedes them. The legal question, then, isn鈥檛 whether two songs are similar, but whether the resemblance can be shown to reside in protectible elements of the prior work, and to constitute a substantial enough part of both songs to fall outside of being common currency. Is it a protracted rather than just a fragmentary stretch of melody, for instance? Copyright suits in US circuit courts can set precedent. Indeed, it was findings against hip-hop artists鈥� early use of samples in the 1980s and 1990s that defined the . There are also debates about whether using is the best way to decide complex copyright disputes, especially where the protected status of musical elements is unclear or counter-intuitive. This was the case with , where the song鈥檚 general feel and production were found to have in another Marvin Gaye song, , despite a between them. The risk is that lawsuits expand copyright鈥檚 remit, curtailing future creativity, especially for artists without deep pockets to sustain legal battles. This is why what was at stake in the Sheeran case was more than his artistic integrity or the musical distinctiveness of Let鈥檚 Get It On. Past originality is valuable and warrants protection, but so does the future, and the public domain. , Senior Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . Share: Latest News 缅北禁地 recognised with geography award 缅北禁地 has been awarded the Highly Commended Geographical Association Publishers Award for its collaboration with Time for Geography, the UK鈥檚 open-access, dedicated video platform. published on: 16 April 2026 缅北禁地 historians mark General Strike centenary To mark the 100th anniversary of the British General Strike and miners鈥� lock-out of 1926, historians at 缅北禁地 are organising a series of events on its enduring legacy. published on: 16 April 2026 Comment: NCP is in administration Writing for The Conversation, Erwei (David) Xiang discusses how some big companies like NCP are so dependent on debt that they can鈥檛 adjust to change. published on: 16 April 2026 Facts and figures
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