A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Ed Sheeran’s music” Think Out Loud” from 2014 did not violate Marvin Gaye’s signature music” Let’s Get It On.”
A three-judge section from the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York upheld a lower court’s decision in a 28-page determination that restricted the album’s author’s right to copywriting to the bony sheet music the album’s publishers had deposited with the US Copyright Office. The judges determined that extra musical elements in the song’s recording, such as the unique bass line and guitar and drum parts, were not so protected by copyright.
They rejected claims from Structured Asset Sales, a song funding company that owns an 11.1 % attention in’ Let’s Get It On,’ that the album’s four-chord structure was original enough to have a copyright. Not only is it commonplace in several songs, the magistrates said, but the tones ‘” selection and arrangement” in a rhythmic pattern was also not authentic.
Trademark experts were watching the case as copyright protection was being sought. They claimed that the “deposit duplicate” rule, which restricts protection for older works to material written down rather than those produced in studios, had deteriorated in line with how music has been produced in the modern era. The 1909 Copyright Act established the rule.
A key issue was whether the “scope” of the trademark in” Let’s Get It On,” or simply which areas of the music were legally protected, was defined by the song’s written deposit copy, or whether jurors could take into account more elements from Gaye’s recording. The district judge, citing a comparable situation involving Led Zeppelin’s ‘ Stairway to Heaven,’ ruled that only the written information on the loan copy were part of the trademark. According to Sheeran’s lawyers, the rhythmic chord pattern in” Think Out Loud” predated” Let’s Get It On” and was common enough to be unprotected by copyright.
As the industrial saving of’ Let’s Get It On’ could not be played at test, jurors heard an electric “realisation” of the melody with mechanical voice.
