![]() ![]() Can we clear it?’ And he went, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. “I had a song that I wrote for Keith Urban, and it sort of sounded like a Coldplay song,” Sheeran added, referring the country singer’s 2018 record “Parallel Line.” “So I emailed Chris Martin and I said, ‘This sounds like your tune. And we work with what we’ve got, with doing that.” “I feel like in the songwriting community, everyone sort of knows that there’s four chords primarily that are used and there’s eight notes. He notes that actual songwriters all seem to get this. Elsewhere, he’s noted similar things, talking about how songwriters know there are only so many notes, and certain songs are going to sound somewhat similar to one another. He went on, “I find it really insulting to work my whole life as a singer-songwriter and diminish it.”ĭoesn’t seem like copyright helping to create incentives for new works, does it? It sure sounds like copyright stifling creativity and artistry. I’m stopping … To have someone come in and say, ‘We don’t believe you, you must have stole it’… find insulting…” …when asked what he would do if the court ruled against him, Sheeran said, “If that happens, I’m done. In the latest case, which just concluded last week, Sheeran said that if he lost he’d probably quit music altogether, as it’s just not worth it. In the aftermath of this, Sheeran has said that he’s now filming all of his recent songwriting sessions, just in case he needs to provide evidence that he and his songwriting partners came up with a song on their own, which is depressing in its own right. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotify-that’s 22 million songs a year-and there’s only 12 notes that are available. There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music. After winning one of the lawsuits a year ago, he put out a heartfelt statement on how ridiculous the whole thing was. ![]() He’s also stood up for kids who had accounts shut down via copyright claims for playing his music.īut the lawsuits have been where he’s really highlighted the absurdity of modern copyright law. Sheeran has always taken a much more open approach to copyright and music, noting that kids pirating his music is how he became famous in the first place. We’ve talked about Sheeran before, as he’s been sued repeatedly by people claiming that his songs sound too much like other songs. That’s why the labels have a long history of never paying artists.īut over the last few years, Ed Sheeran has been highlighting the ways in which (beyond the “who gets paid” aspect of all of this) modern copyright is stifling rather than incentivizing music creation - directly in contrast to what we’re told it’s supposed to be doing. ![]() Copyright was designed to benefit the middlemen and gatekeepers, such as the record labels, over the artists themselves. It also acknowledges that influence and inspiration from previous works are part of the construction of the pop music we love.To hear the recording industry tell the story, copyright is the only thing protecting musicians from poverty and despair. The ruling in Sheeran’s case supports the rights of musical artists to continue to use these progressions as part of a songwriter’s toolkit, and to build from the artists who came before them. The true craft of great pop music is to take these formulas and turn them into something unique (while simultaneously making it sound easy). It is how these “building blocks” are used, and in what combinations, that gives us a great variety of pop songs over many decades. The letters of the alphabet of music these are basic musical building blocks that songwriters now and forever must be free to use. These chord progressions are part of a songwriter’s toolkit in a similar way to how an artist may use different paint brushes.Īs Sheeran’s lawyer Ilene Farkas noted, chord progressions are: ![]() Rock, pop, blues, doo wop and other musical genres can often be defined by their use of repeated chord progressions. ![]()
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