You might remember a few years ago when Marvin Gaye’s estate went after Robin Thicke for ripping off Marin Gaye with the song Blurred Lines. Whether you hated Robin Thicke’s music, or you were his one real fan, it seems like most people thought that the case was frivolous. Ultimately, Thicke lost and was forced to pay an absurd amount of money to Gaye’s estate, which may have set precedent for similar cases. Well, now one of Gaye’s writing partners is going after Ed Sheeran for allegedly ripping off Gaye’s Let’s Get It On with Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud. Here, see for yourself.
Gaye’s co-writer, Ed Townsend, claims in the suit that “The defendants copied the ‘heart’ of ‘Let’s’ and repeated it continuously throughout Thinking. The melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic compositions of Thinking are substantially and/or strikingly similar to the drum composition of ‘Let’s.” What does copying the heart of a song mean? Does he mean that both songs are classic boning anthems? Because that’s definitely true, but from listening to both song through multiple times it’s hard to say that Sheeran necessarily ‘stole’ any one part of the song. If being influenced by someone else’s music is enough for a lawsuit, then why hasn’t Desiigner been sued into oblivion by Future? It’ll be interesting to see how this case plays out.
[h/t The Guardian]