Two of the biggest pop stars in the world are currently facing the same problem: accusations of plagiarism. English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran is a “magpie” who “borrows” ideas and uses them for his own songs, the prosecutors say. Singer Dua Lipa is currently involved in two copyright cases at the same time. Sheeran’s case went to court in London on Tuesday: he is now awaiting the verdict. Lipa’s cases have yet to go to trial.
Reggae band Artikal Sound System sued Dua Lipa in early March for plagiarism of the relatively unknown song ‘Live Your Life‘ (2017) in Lipa’s song ‘Levitating(2020). The accusation is not very specific, but the chord progressions and rhythms are close by ear, and the songs have the same key. The band calls it “highly unlikely” that Lipa’s hit came about without deliberate copying.
Less than a week later, a second lawsuit followed: according to songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, the opening melody of ‘Levitating’ would be a ‘duplicate’ of their songs’Wiggle and Giggle All Night‘ (1979) and ‘Don Diablo‘ (1980). Brown and Linzer’s lawyer also pointed out that Lipa has said in interviews that she deliberately used older music as inspiration for the retro sound of her album. Future Nostalgia (2020). Lipa broke another record on the US Billboard chart last week: ‘Levitating’ has been in the top 100 for 70 weeks, the longest period ever for a female artist.
Same vowels, same scale
Ed Sheeran’s’Shape of You‘ is the most-streamed song in Spotify’s history. On March 7 and 8, the songwriter appeared in court to defend his hit song. Songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue think ‘Shape of You’ is ‘too much like their song’oh why‘ from 2015. They mainly hear similarities in the hooks: Chokri sings “oh, why”, Sheeran sings “oh, I”. The English superstar denies hearing ‘Oh Why’ when he wrote his song, but when asked if the melodies are similar, Sheeran replies: “Basically yes. They are both based on the minor pentatonic scale, and they have vowels in them.”
Lipa and Sheeran are not the only ones with copyright problems: Miley Cyrus, Lizzo and Katy Perry have also had to deal with plagiarism cases. The American entertainment news site Variety calls it “almost a model in recent years: if a song is a hit, copyright issues follow.”
Also read: Hear Why Pharrell Has to Pay Millions to Marvin Gaye’s Family
It’s about the ‘sound’
The much-discussed case surrounding ‘Blurred Lines‘ by singer Robin Thicke and producer Pharrell Williams seems to have opened the door in 2013: according to the jury, the song was too much like Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got To Give It Up†
According to the prosecutors, however, this was not about melody or text, but about the overall ‘sound’ of the song. The jury may have allowed itself to be influenced by an interview with Thicke from GQ Magazine in 2013in which he says that ‘Got To Give It Up’ is “one of” [zijn] favorite songs of all time”, and that he had asked Williams “something” [te maken] with that groove”. Thicke and Williams ended up paying $5.3 million to the Gaye family in 2018.
The ‘Blurred Lines’ case was followed by a series of copyright cases in pop music that interpret the idea of plagiarism more broadly: instead of a lyrics or melody, it is increasingly about chord progressions, beats, style or inspiration. Or it’s about melodic structures that appear more often in songs, because they sound catchy by the standards of pop music.
Ed Sheeran sang bits of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” and Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” during his testimony to illustrate this: “If you put them in the same key, they sound the same.” The question is whether the judges will judge on the basis of musicological arguments, or whether they will rely on a comparable ‘sound’.
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