Did Ed Sheeran ACTUALLY Plagiarize Marvin Gaye?

So...is there any actual merit to the Ed Sheeran/Marvin Gaye lawsuit?

The Grotesque Legacy of Music as Property (video essay on music as property)

My first video on the Ed Sheeran/Marvin Gaye lawsuit

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[jonathanbyrdmusic]

The entire country music industry would cease to exist under this kind of scrutiny.

[Smithelwerb]

Wait till these lawyers find out about 12-bar blues.

[WayneKitching]

The defense team literally played the Axis of Awesome video in court to show that completely different songs can have the same chord progression! 😂

[ngwoo]

Imagine if copyright law, as applied to music, applied to food. Every restaurant that uses mirepoix getting sued by the estate of some French guy. Having to pay royalties if you want to season with thyme and rosemary. It's shocking just how brazen the corporate attacks on personal expression have become.

[tenorman]

If the descendants and estate of songwriters and composers successfully make these suits, then the descendants of Pachelbel are probably going to expect a BIG payout.

[Duffley]

I hope the court finally plays one of Adam's videos to the parties involved so they can actually digest and understand it better before deciding anything.

[guyblack]

My favorite genre of youtube video is adam neely explaining why two similar sounding songs are't copyright infringing

[AimeeNolte]

Great video, Adam - kudos for making it on tour and having it look and sound great!

[nickhamblin]

Given the number of lawsuits that Marvin Gaye's Estate have brought against musicians, I can only assume that he essentially invented music as a concept, including chord progressions.

[kelseycarlisle]

One of my biggest problems with these lawsuits is that they are almost always presented on behalf of dead people who likely would've never even thought to sue someone over a chord progression or a "vibe." Just like Townsend was clearly influenced by and writing in the style of doo-wop music, Marvin Gaye was probably influenced by artists and tried to channel styles he liked in his own music. And, of course, Ed Sheeran does the same. I've never met a musician who became a musician in a void without hearing other music. But it will always be hard to explain to some people that chords, vibes, sounds, progressions, etc. cannot be owned. Plus the whole money thing lol

[brunodelconte]

A really interesting idea to acknowledge all those who went before, but honestly someone is going to be missed. Could you imagine trying this with literature? But I should say Adam is GENIUS, absolutely love his understanding of music theory and the effort to explain it to mortals like me. Thank you!

[HeisenbergFam]

Its heartwarming to see Adam giving a shoutout to unknown artists like Ed Sheeran and Marvin Gaye

[LeglessWonder]

More people need to be like Freddie Mercury.

“do whatever you want with my music, just don’t make it boring”

That being said, this is frivolous as fuck

[SubitusNex]

What I like about this video is that it focuses on the conversation about the issue rather than a "did he do it". Music copyright is weird.
The idea of citation is somewhat interesting, but might be hard to implement if you don't know where the citation comes from.
Reminds me of how Jazz musicians love quoting licks from each other, but at some point we don't know where the original of something came from it's just part of the "scene" and the "language". And it'll continue to happen, lawyers involved or not. We'll definitely need to find a way to protects artists somehow, though.

[TheForeignGamer]

These types of lawsuits should just be almost universally dismissed by the legal system, because they blatantly and willingly ignore the entire historical and cultural context of music itself and how musicians have expressed themselves since time immemorial.

[andrewlewis]

I agree with all the points you made here, Adam. However, encouraging MORE citations in songwriting makes me nervous. I think it's entirely possible to write a song that borrows aesthetics from many songs without even knowing it, and that's okay and shouldn't have legal consequences. If I've listened to artist X before and then time passes and I write a song, it might have elements from artist X that I'm not even aware of. If you put my original work under a microscope it probably shares tons of stylistic elements from artist X. I just think requiring so many citations opens the doors for too much bad-faith litigation if something sounds kinda similar without a citation.

[adriancadena]

Your closing thoughts are brilliant. That's a great idea. We should cite "inspiration" or "sources" when publishing new music

[brianwarren]

Funny how the copying the groove is what causes these lawsuits, because session musicians who don't get writing credit or royalties are often the ones that created the groove on hit songs in the first place

[felisolacaso]

It makes a lot of sense to create mechanisms for better citation/reference, especially because it helps who’s learning.

The challenging part is where the creators can’t associate their work with its influences, as it can be part of their own creative process without consciously seeing that it’s based on something they’ve heard before

[valsptsd]

This is so well spoken, and I love the statement from Sheeran. Pop music is so limited in it’s range, only so many chord changes are present.

I am glad he won.