Did Ed Sheeran ACTUALLY Plagiarize Marvin Gaye?

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 เม.ย. 2023
  • So...is there any actual merit to the Ed Sheeran/Marvin Gaye lawsuit?
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ความคิดเห็น • 3.3K

  • @Smithelwerb
    @Smithelwerb ปีที่แล้ว +5046

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

    • @budgetguitaristcom
      @budgetguitaristcom ปีที่แล้ว +95

      This comment deserves far more thumbs up.

    • @flare2000x
      @flare2000x ปีที่แล้ว +78

      Or rhythm changes

    • @michaelr.landon1727
      @michaelr.landon1727 ปีที่แล้ว +34

      I was just having a conversation with an intellectual copyright lawyer about this exact topic as the trouble with the current spell of frivolous copyright cases

    • @michaelr.landon1727
      @michaelr.landon1727 ปีที่แล้ว +24

      The benchmark should be based on how differentiated the melody and the lyrics are

    • @scaredyfish
      @scaredyfish ปีที่แล้ว +110

      If one person copies it’s plagiarism, if thousands copy, it’s a new genre.

  • @jonathanbyrdmusic
    @jonathanbyrdmusic ปีที่แล้ว +3444

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

    • @sgtpetergreen
      @sgtpetergreen ปีที่แล้ว +188

      @@PortableCoincidenceMachine "and the problem with that is...?" 🤓

    • @kikio-rq9kx
      @kikio-rq9kx ปีที่แล้ว +15

      Well country Is black music.

    • @Bwooke
      @Bwooke ปีที่แล้ว +74

      ​@@PortableCoincidenceMachine dude I hate country, but even as a joke this is a bad take.

    • @obiwanda
      @obiwanda ปีที่แล้ว

      If by "country music industry" you mean the loose collection of identical white dudes Nashville has ordained to keep writing the same song about drinking beer on a dirt road with a truck and a girl with long legs in a small town by the river etc., then you're right
      But dig a little deeper, there's some really good underappreciated artists that are still making good country music, you just have to sift through the inane cookie-cutter garbage foisted on you by the industry.

    • @davis70140
      @davis70140 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Im shock little richard family ain't suing many music artist listen to little richard songs your see how many music artist have stolen from him elvis presly stole from little richard and when little richard finely met elvis he wrote little richard a check and little richard went whooo I love elvis he's so sweet and went shut up when interviewed about it also marven gay stole from little richard compare the songs

  • @WayneKitching
    @WayneKitching ปีที่แล้ว +480

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

    • @elenawilliams32
      @elenawilliams32 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      As an Aussie, I find that hilarious. They were hilarious live.

    • @madamcuracha9391
      @madamcuracha9391 ปีที่แล้ว +49

      That's one of the easiest ways to explain to the jury. 4-Chord Progression is a pretty common element in Music and nobody owns. The extortionist are disgusting for milking money out of talented artists! So happy Ed won❤️❤️❤️

    • @WayneKitching
      @WayneKitching ปีที่แล้ว +38

      @@madamcuracha9391 If Ed had lost, it would have open the floodgates for countless other lawsuits, so I'm also glad he won!

    • @joelv4495
      @joelv4495 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@WayneKitching Sadly, it won't stop the copyright trolls from trying!

    • @Kat-I-am3333
      @Kat-I-am3333 25 วันที่ผ่านมา

      Like George Harrison's case of plagerizing One Fine Day. I think he lost.

  • @KyrieFortune
    @KyrieFortune ปีที่แล้ว +43

    A similar thing has happened this very month at Eurovision: the winning song, power ballad "Tattoo" by Loreen, has been accused of plagiarism for sounding very similar to a song by an Ukranian pop artist.
    And "The winner takes it all" by ABBA.
    And a few handful of other songs.
    When you realize it sounds like so many other songs... it's not plagiarism, it's just a chord that is used.

  • @ngwoo
    @ngwoo ปีที่แล้ว +1062

    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.

    • @purposefully.verbose
      @purposefully.verbose ปีที่แล้ว +9

      "just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait..."
      it's just a matter of time in this economic climate - they done gone cray cray out there.
      (the video I watched before this one, was cops literally stealing the cars of protesters)

    • @JohnvanCapel
      @JohnvanCapel ปีที่แล้ว +40

      If they applied to language in the way they apparently get used for music, you'd owe someone money *every time you spoke a single word, in any known language* - you'd get sued for using the word "the".

    • @mongarcia9151
      @mongarcia9151 ปีที่แล้ว +37

      This is one of the most convincing analogies out there. I'm pretty sure these corporate idiots who just want money don't really care about how an artist would feel if their music was used as an influence. They're just greedy for whatever amount of money they can leech from it.

    • @Jay-wk9xj
      @Jay-wk9xj ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Tell me you don't understand anything related to intellectual property without telling me.. ridiculous argument.

    • @calebader6695
      @calebader6695 ปีที่แล้ว +29

      ​@Jay "Intellectual property" is not property. You can't own an idea, it's impossible.

  • @Duffley
    @Duffley ปีที่แล้ว +1899

    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.

    • @dwdei8815
      @dwdei8815 ปีที่แล้ว +102

      Ha ha, then Adam could take them to court for plagiarising his arguments against plagiarism!
      Law can be nutty.

    • @dinobuddy
      @dinobuddy ปีที่แล้ว +122

      Adam should instead market himself as an expert witness in copyright disputes. That's the only way his opinions could be made admissible in court and plus, he could charge $500 an hour for his time.

    • @batti591
      @batti591 ปีที่แล้ว +29

      @@dinobuddy The only way to make money in music.

    • @dwdei8815
      @dwdei8815 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      @@dinobuddy That would be money well spent. Especially if he gigged for them in the intervals.

    • @mattewwoodward4131
      @mattewwoodward4131 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      U have be tone death and never heard iver of songs before to even come to a conclusion they sound the same

  • @AimeeNolte
    @AimeeNolte ปีที่แล้ว +5

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

  • @brunodelconte
    @brunodelconte ปีที่แล้ว +16

    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!

  • @tenorman1971
    @tenorman1971 ปีที่แล้ว +1425

    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.

    • @pa28cfi
      @pa28cfi ปีที่แล้ว +70

      Public domain.

    • @roachdoggjr5840
      @roachdoggjr5840 ปีที่แล้ว +60

      @@pa28cfi joke.

    • @aleonimation
      @aleonimation ปีที่แล้ว +14

      The problem is that these are copyrighted songs, Pachelbel and others like him are public domain

    • @juliecostello42
      @juliecostello42 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I make some sick Polyester suits if you like, ADAM'S shirt is cotton blend and it's his own band, stay focused y'all

    • @beeble2003
      @beeble2003 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      @@roachdoggjr5840 Expecting that people will understand "No, I'm not misunderstanding how copyright works -- I'm satirizing other people who don't understand how copyright works", in text, in front of total strangers, with no context, in a venue where misunderstanding the point is extremely common, is just doomed to fail.

  • @nickhamblin8179
    @nickhamblin8179 ปีที่แล้ว +911

    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.

    • @milanforever7014
      @milanforever7014 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      you can say whatever you want dude.. the song is photocopied.. it doesn't take much to change a few things to make a song more unique.. it's either laziness or bad faith sorry

    • @lownessfunk4932
      @lownessfunk4932 ปีที่แล้ว +27

      Its important not to forget what Adam Neely mention in this video when referring to the history white musical artist appropriating genres that were developed by black artist. This went on in the last 100 years and still happens to this day. Furthermore Im 100% for Adam's idea on the citation
      eference system!

    • @BigDaddyWes
      @BigDaddyWes ปีที่แล้ว +11

      It's not Marvin Gaye's Estate. He didn't write Let's Get It On.

    • @thesoundsmith
      @thesoundsmith ปีที่แล้ว +35

      He didn't invent it, his lawyers copyrighted it.
      KEep in mind Marvin will never see a PENNY of this even if the lawyers win (doubtful.)

    • @jamorains
      @jamorains ปีที่แล้ว +54

      @Lowness Funk ...Widespread appropriation is how a "genre" comes into being.
      (Black musicians stole from each other all the time). The history of music is the history of cultural cross-pollination.

  • @adriancadena2887
    @adriancadena2887 ปีที่แล้ว +3

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

  • @madamcuracha9391
    @madamcuracha9391 ปีที่แล้ว +254

    DEFINITELY NOT. That's actually a pretty common 4-chord progression. It's very disgusting for the heirs of Townsend to extort Ed. I hope Ed wins!❤

    • @bbkingme8831
      @bbkingme8831 ปีที่แล้ว

      Common? That's marvin Gaye's progression. Just like every nice progression of music it comes from what u call niggas. Ed Sheeran is 100% just like most of America copying blk culture. And your comment shows you're 1 of them. This is 100% a copy of marvin Gaye. Influence and sound. The issue with all this is white ppl. They steal everything blk ppl do. Everything. And that's ok to be inspired. but to hate the ppl u wanna be is the issue. Especially ur kind of hate.

    • @lovesamantha9208
      @lovesamantha9208 ปีที่แล้ว +25

      He won.

    • @etvscandalfanpage2011
      @etvscandalfanpage2011 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Those two songs sound exactly the same

    • @madamcuracha9391
      @madamcuracha9391 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      @@etvscandalfanpage2011 Similar but NOT EXACT!

    • @John-od8zv
      @John-od8zv ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @@etvscandalfanpage2011 Newsflash, a LOT of songs sound similar but are not the exact same.

  • @guyblack9729
    @guyblack9729 ปีที่แล้ว +303

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

    • @gregsimmons3323
      @gregsimmons3323 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @DG White Saviour complex would imply siding with Townsend over the Sheeren.

    • @thesoundsmith
      @thesoundsmith ปีที่แล้ว +7

      These two songs do NOT qualify, they are quite dissimilar when you examine all the things that CAN be "protected."

    • @cl8804
      @cl8804 ปีที่แล้ว

      actually, that's not what he's explaining. he's explaining a musical opinion; not a legal one

  • @kelseycarlisle6916
    @kelseycarlisle6916 ปีที่แล้ว +588

    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

    • @Durmomo0
      @Durmomo0 ปีที่แล้ว +61

      yeah its because the actual musicians understand how it all works and their relatives hear something that sounds the same but have no clue how being a musician actually is and just want to cash in.

    • @tecnosinemusic
      @tecnosinemusic ปีที่แล้ว +55

      Keep in mind the JURY aren't musicians and don't understand that essential part that all of us musicians get, which is the very things everyone's talking about in this comments section. I honestly think Townsend's estate and Gaye's descendants are ruining the music industry because they're convincing every single jury in every single case they bring against a modern artist and fundamentally changing how musicians write their music. It's actually scary and dangerous. I now have no respect for those people. I'm sorry but I don't.

    • @2fs
      @2fs ปีที่แล้ว +9

      $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
      You'll notice very few lawsuits in which the two songs involved are both deeply obscure. One or the other song, or both, are typically very popular, financially remunerative tracks.
      Rockin' Jimmy down the street who's hawking homemade cassettes of a song he wrote and recorded himself is in no danger of being sued for plagiarism, despite the fact that he ripped off a song that was a Belgium-only b-side in 1951...because there's no money on either side of that equation.

    • @sleepymarauder4178
      @sleepymarauder4178 ปีที่แล้ว

      Both were influenced by Church Choirs because they were in it if I recall correctly.

    • @skyblazeeterno
      @skyblazeeterno ปีที่แล้ว

      But they CAN be owned which is the point of copyright

  • @SubitusNex
    @SubitusNex ปีที่แล้ว +7

    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.

  • @ladyluckclubllc
    @ladyluckclubllc ปีที่แล้ว

    BEST EXPLANATION and example of the 2 songs ever!!! Good job!!!

  • @ChrisLau90
    @ChrisLau90 ปีที่แล้ว +1656

    I'm no fan of Ed Sheeran, but anyone who enjoys any kind of music in general can see how much of a farce this lawsuit is.

    • @enzop2835
      @enzop2835 ปีที่แล้ว +41

      Uuuuuuh. No it isn't. Marvin G made the original. Carrot Top Sheeran is leeching off it.
      Have some common sense.

    • @CMJames
      @CMJames ปีที่แล้ว +14

      Not a farce at all

    • @skyisreallyhigh3333
      @skyisreallyhigh3333 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@enzop2835 Common sense would require for you to know that what you said isnt true.
      You're just an idiot who doesnt like ed Sheeran and you let your emotions get in the way of judgement.
      These songs have different chord progressions and the melodies arent the same.
      Music is all about playing in styles.
      You would know that if you had common sense and watched the video before commenting and embarassing yourself.

    • @mitchlang6634
      @mitchlang6634 ปีที่แล้ว +142

      @@CMJames do you guys realize HOW MANY SONGS THERE ARE ON EARTH.
      it’s pretty much mathematically impossible to not mimic another song’s chord progression/rhythm without making some crazy song that has 0 rhythm?
      It’s literally just a style of music. Nothing unique about it.

    • @princessm6355
      @princessm6355 ปีที่แล้ว +36

      You’d be surprised how many people are crying plagiarism and cultural appropriation 🙄

  • @snowleopard9749
    @snowleopard9749 ปีที่แล้ว +533

    Lawsuits like this are ruining music.

    • @LesterBrunt
      @LesterBrunt ปีที่แล้ว +7

      No, they are ruining the music industry as it deserves to be.
      Most music doesn’t exist in the music industry.

    • @brainSTAIN111
      @brainSTAIN111 ปีที่แล้ว

      unoriginal artists like shereen are ruining music

    • @CMJames
      @CMJames ปีที่แล้ว

      No, they are ruing white artists chances of habitual theft

    • @ThePolareyes53
      @ThePolareyes53 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      Today’s “music” is ruining music.

    • @skyisreallyhigh3333
      @skyisreallyhigh3333 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@ThePolareyes53 No, capitalism is ruining music

  • @valsptsd814
    @valsptsd814 ปีที่แล้ว +43

    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.

    • @fulanodetal4148
      @fulanodetal4148 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      It’s not only the chords but the bass line and drums beat

  • @elsadmafioso
    @elsadmafioso 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

    thank you very much for these videos! they have been really useful for writing my thesis on plagiarism in music

  • @LeglessWonder
    @LeglessWonder ปีที่แล้ว +1096

    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

    • @Brinta3
      @Brinta3 ปีที่แล้ว +67

      @Legless Wonder
      Two issues:
      1. Freddie supposedly said this to his manager Jim Beach. Beach is the only source and he’s not entirely trustworthy. Beach may have said it to justify re-releasing Freddie’s music in all kinds of ways, squeezing every last penny out of Freddie’s legacy. But it could be true; Freddie was keen on leaving his loved ones, friends, family, and bandmembers in a secure financial situation.
      2. Regardless, the quote has nothing to do with this video and plagiarism. If Freddie said it, then he meant it for Jim Beach, John Deacon, Roger Taylor, and Brian May. He trusted them to handle his musical legacy and to finish any unfinished songs. He definitely didn’t mean that anyone could plagiarise his music; that would indeed defeat the purpose of preserving his legacy and creating a healthy financial basis for the other members of Queen. There’s a reason why for the last albums all writing credits were shared equally even though Freddie was the most prolific writer in the band.

    • @lolosaulala48
      @lolosaulala48 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      ​@@Brinta3 when?

    • @Brinta3
      @Brinta3 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      @@lolosaulala48
      When what?

    • @lolosaulala48
      @lolosaulala48 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      @@Brinta3 when did we ask? 😂😂😂

    • @bjoecoz
      @bjoecoz ปีที่แล้ว +8

      Ummmm they sued Vanilla Ice tho.

  • @HeisenbergFam
    @HeisenbergFam ปีที่แล้ว +855

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

    • @c31979839
      @c31979839 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      Get outta here bot.

    • @NummyGD
      @NummyGD ปีที่แล้ว +19

      @@c31979839Not a bot lol

    • @c31979839
      @c31979839 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@NummyGD I couldn't imagine what it's like defending a bot 🤣

    • @dandanjambon
      @dandanjambon ปีที่แล้ว +10

      @@c31979839 lmao what

    • @quatie
      @quatie ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Ive had to Google these guys.

  • @johndoe-ep7qk
    @johndoe-ep7qk ปีที่แล้ว

    man such excellent points, especially the novel ideas about who should really get cited for songwriting credits, the limited number of progressions within a genre, etc, and AI being at our doorstep, which could be the end of creativity in the traditional sense

  • @sundude800
    @sundude800 ปีที่แล้ว

    A very nice video! And very sane, compelling arguments to boot!

  • @TheForeignGamer
    @TheForeignGamer ปีที่แล้ว +316

    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.

    • @jeffreypelton1260
      @jeffreypelton1260 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      I agree with this. Short of blatant copying, I'm not sure that elements that define a genre or feel should be legally protected. Trying to assert copyright infringement for using a particular genre's sound or feel is like if a painter asserted infringement because another painter used the same shade of green. Yes... some elements may be similar or even identical, but the work as a whole is unique and not derived from the other work beyond being in the same stylistic genre.

    • @jameswainaina9133
      @jameswainaina9133 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Create sth and then watch someone make millions off it see how it feels.

    • @skyisreallyhigh3333
      @skyisreallyhigh3333 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @@jameswainaina9133 That's not what's happening here.
      Are you claiming the estate created the music and not the artist?

    • @jameswainaina9133
      @jameswainaina9133 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@skyisreallyhigh3333So if you're father creates a product then dies its not your family's product anymore. Its actually the producer/songwriter family suing and not Marvin's family coz most likely Marvin did not have the publishing of the song so i'll rephrase my statement. "Let your late Grandfather or father create sth and then watch someone make millions off it see how it feels". Its called sampling. Do some research. Heck some artists dont even ask for any money to sample their original works. Have their people call your people. common courtesy. Dont just use my shit just because you're Ed Sheeran(or whoever) and think its ok. Theres rules and Laws to this.

    • @alexc9278
      @alexc9278 ปีที่แล้ว

      ​@@jameswainaina9133 totally agree 👍🏻
      Sheeran could give the songwriter credits and call it a day. Why make such fuss about it when the similarities are way too strong? 😅 Sheeran is freaking rich. It wouldn't count that much on the numbers

  • @andrewlewis8223
    @andrewlewis8223 ปีที่แล้ว +184

    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.

    • @taylormaines9909
      @taylormaines9909 ปีที่แล้ว +35

      i said the exact same thing. It can become really hard to know what is engrained in your "musical DNA" after 30+ years of absorbing great music from everywhere.

    • @budgetguitaristcom
      @budgetguitaristcom ปีที่แล้ว +35

      Not only is it entirely possible, I feel like it's impossible to NOT borrow from songs we've known. No matter how hard we try, there will be melodic ideas we like, and we like them because we've heard them before.

    • @cjkenney
      @cjkenney ปีที่แล้ว +9

      The thing though is that if there is a claim you can update the citation list. And you wouldnt lose all your royalties like you would in the current system if someone takes you to court.

    • @tomsawyer3295
      @tomsawyer3295 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Ran into this exact problem when recording music for the first time. The drummer we had hired found our song problematic, because he thought it sounded like we had ripped off a song that is quite famous in our country.
      Our song:
      th-cam.com/video/R_gLTtH76pM/w-d-xo.html
      The song we supposedly ripped off:
      th-cam.com/video/STzbPBvIQ-Y/w-d-xo.html
      I had never heard of the song nor the band before I sat in a studio about to record my own material.
      While writing it however, it did cross my mind that there must have been a ton of other songs with the same exact bassline in that particular phrasing. Its a very basic idea after all. Never thought it would be a problem though, as one can't really own ideas.

    • @michaelLaderman-pk5mn
      @michaelLaderman-pk5mn ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@cjkenney If it worked that way, no problem. If it were a legal requirement that could incur damages, that would be much more problematic.

  • @Gooden_Eye
    @Gooden_Eye ปีที่แล้ว

    Adam, your video from 4 years ago (then with Legal Eagle 3 years ago) had it right, but thanks for the update!
    Now the new element of A.I. music (if it's music) really could crush human musicians worse than commercial radio crushed alternative rock in the early 2000's, IMO.

  • @Project-Aries
    @Project-Aries ปีที่แล้ว

    Great insight on this subject. Very well explained.

  • @brianwarren1235
    @brianwarren1235 ปีที่แล้ว +193

    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

    • @pmnt_
      @pmnt_ ปีที่แล้ว +39

      This is a common misconception: copyright does not serve the creators, it serves the publishers.

    • @TranquiloTrev
      @TranquiloTrev ปีที่แล้ว +4

      That is exactly correct, but they sign away their claim to copyright when they get paid for the session, and their payment takes this into account. They are not fools, and this practice is long established. In this case the bass player who created the groove is one of the most celebrated musicians of his generation and his groove is unique.

    • @rustystone3367
      @rustystone3367 ปีที่แล้ว

      Rusty-1-A.N.S. Session musicians are hired to play the song as written or they are sometimes given permission to come up with a guitar or bass line etc. They are playing and getting paid as 'a work for hire'. They are NOT the publisher of said song! Similar to someone who hires a contractor to build a house. That house does NOT belong to the contractor or any he or she hires to to do the actual building of that house.."it belongs to the person (s) who is paying for that house to be built and files all the necessary permits and fees etc. to be granted deed, title!!!! So the publisher, copywrite holder (be they a producer, writer, musician) is the rightful owner of a piece of music.

    • @pmnt_
      @pmnt_ ปีที่แล้ว

      @@rustystone3367 The construction example doesn't work, because neither party can generate a passive income as with copyright.
      Here is a hypothetical copyrighted construction service: A law firm purchases plans for a house and licences them to a contractor. The contractor builds the house, someone buys it and becomes property owner.
      But: Whenever someone who is not the owner visits the house, looks at the house, takes a picture of the house, takes a video of the house (even if it's just the background, not the focus), someone else wants to build a similar house, there are royalties to pay to the law firm. Not the architect, not the contractor, not the owner.
      and THAT is the current state of the copyright.

  • @felisolacaso
    @felisolacaso ปีที่แล้ว +112

    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

    • @koalanectar9382
      @koalanectar9382 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      Exactly, and I mean honestly how granular can we get with this stuff? Marvin Gaye didn't invent the chords he combined to create the song, nor the system of music that describes the intervalic relationships to spell them, nor any of the instruments the song was played on. Was he supposed to credit all those people?

    • @nataliatc1
      @nataliatc1 ปีที่แล้ว

      🎯

    • @bricelory9534
      @bricelory9534 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      And the worst part is if all songs typically have a full list of inspirations and something is left off (either by forgetting about it or simply it being a coincidence that they have similar sounds or other aspects), it will automatically look like the artist is trying to rip off the person who wasn't included on the list. It inspires a guilty until proven innocent mindset to approach inspiration, which frankly would kill creativity dead.
      A lot of musicians and writers I have seen will include their intentional inspirations in forewords/acknowledgements sections that are already common place in albums and novels, etc. Any more than that assumes a formulaic process of creativity that simply does not exist.

    • @KN-ck2kd
      @KN-ck2kd ปีที่แล้ว +3

      I was thinking the same! It's a nice idea in theory but all the influences over a musical composition can't be exhaustively quantified in a list of citations. Not to mention that that system wouldn't account for musical ideas that are not conscious references, but coincidentally happen to exist in an older piece of music as well as the work in question. I don't think musicians should be penalized for using older musical ideas either on purpose or 'by accident'.

    • @2fs
      @2fs ปีที่แล้ว +1

      There'd need to be an automatic license, though--similar to the way anyone who properly credits its writers can do a cover--because otherwise, can you imagine the headache a musician would have to go through, clearing rights to use 50 different songwriters' "inspirations"? Or even keeping track of them? I mean, most musicians I know are inspired by lots of things...but a lot of that percolates into their music unpredictably and unconsciously.
      I'd much rather see a system in which copyright inheres more strongly the more original the copyrighted work is (which is to say: your song is a 12-bar blues in E with a standard blues progression? That part of the song just is NOT copyrightable...), and wherein more original or exotic melodic/harmonic elements can be credited automatically without need for "permission."

  • @drcarrot
    @drcarrot ปีที่แล้ว

    Thank you. Very helpful video. I agree that the practice of crediting one person doesn't make sense. Love and respect to all who came before and all involved in the current creation.

  • @DanielTompkinsGuitar
    @DanielTompkinsGuitar ปีที่แล้ว +9

    I could see songwriting credits becoming like scientific papers, where there is a lead author or two, then a bunch more authors listed who contributed in some way. They could also give a references page 😂

  • @akareject
    @akareject ปีที่แล้ว +172

    I noticed this was recorded from the bus you are using for the current Sungazer US tour. I'd be interested in hearing you compare and contrast touring by bus versus touring by plane. I found your video on traveling on a plane with gear very insightful and I think doing with same with your bus tour could also be equally as enlightening. For instance, I imagine it is easier to travel your gear on a bus, but that assumption may be wrong if there just isn't enough storage on the bus for the gear, the luggage, and the people. Thanks!

    • @kage-fm
      @kage-fm ปีที่แล้ว +2

      tiktoking from your bus >> tiktoking from your car

    • @zebragoboom
      @zebragoboom ปีที่แล้ว +1

      ​@@strangehermitage2299 like you didnt even read the comment haha

  • @cynicalclockworks9857
    @cynicalclockworks9857 ปีที่แล้ว +464

    There's lots of petty lawsuits out there, but this one bugs me more than most. I'll never be able to play a note again without paying royalties to Alice in Chains or Mastodon.

    • @idontevenlikemoney
      @idontevenlikemoney ปีที่แล้ว +58

      Could you imagine if most punk and metal musicians were this petty? Certain bands would own entire sub genres.

    • @SerjBassist
      @SerjBassist ปีที่แล้ว +41

      @@idontevenlikemoney Don't speak too loud, Lars might hear you (?)

    • @stevenc6969
      @stevenc6969 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      This Ed Sheeran song was an obvious rip-off.
      It wasn't only the notes and chord progression it was the entire rhythm and vibe of the song as well.
      I noticed it instantly the first time I heard it and it is not the first time he has done this.

    • @nedim_guitar
      @nedim_guitar ปีที่แล้ว +4

      No other choice than to play 8 string guitars and just chug in 19/8.

    • @nedim_guitar
      @nedim_guitar ปีที่แล้ว +26

      ​@@stevenc6969Inspired by isn't copying a song.

  • @bleauh
    @bleauh ปีที่แล้ว

    Adam doing a very good job of shooting this from this angle on a tour bus that appears to actually be in motion.

  • @cliffgaither
    @cliffgaither ปีที่แล้ว

    Your knowledge of music and your videos about music are really fascinating. I've learned a great deal about music from your videos and applied it to classical & opera. Your explanation about the different music genres was very easy to understand and straightforward, especially the doo-wop progressions.
    If certain types of music styles are different from different eras, it makes sense that composers will be required to follow the "rules" of their time and still be individual artists.
    Handel and Vivaldi were two of the greatest creators of music. I'm not, by any means, an expert, but they followed the rules for composition for their time. Once those rules were in place, their individual talents of expression went their separate ways in dramatic feeling. All composers can read the music of other composers and understand what the composer is doing.
    Your idea about listing all of the musicians who contributed to the current artist's expression of a particular era & style makes perfect sense.
    Haydn's "Surprise Symphony" lets the listener know that something _new and different_ will be heard.
    You've really simulated everyone's thoughts on this subject.
    Thanks again !

  • @dank5018
    @dank5018 ปีที่แล้ว +26

    This happens so often I was wondering why youtube was sending me a notification about an old video

  • @doliver5447
    @doliver5447 ปีที่แล้ว +51

    Amen. The problem with these lawsuits, IMO, is that there are no progressions or melodies that can’t be related to an earlier iteration. Music as an art form is about re-interpretation.

  • @RogueCylon
    @RogueCylon ปีที่แล้ว

    Here after the verdict. Enjoyed your analysis and viewpoints.

  • @princessm6355
    @princessm6355 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    Ahhh so should all these folks prior sue Marvin’s estate? I’m really proud of y’all for making these videos and showing the world why knowing music theory is so important! Keep it up

    • @TMeyer-cc9cw
      @TMeyer-cc9cw ปีที่แล้ว +1

      The fact that you think its marvins estate tells me you gathered virtually nothing from the video. human toilet

    • @princessm6355
      @princessm6355 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@TMeyer-cc9cw dumbass how is that so? I know it was Ed Townsend estate suing. Marvin’s estate has gone after people in the past for other songs. One wrong fact doesn’t mean I didn’t gather anything from the video

    • @ruawee2925
      @ruawee2925 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@TMeyer-cc9cw you ok?

    • @TMeyer-cc9cw
      @TMeyer-cc9cw ปีที่แล้ว

      @@ruawee2925 R U Ok?

  • @malenky4057
    @malenky4057 ปีที่แล้ว +99

    My problem is the money side of things. I think your idea of a 'show your reference/sources' concept is great. It would be so easy to do with modern music streaming platforms as well, just click a 'sources' tab and go straight to the music that influenced that song. It would even be a great way of discovering more music you like and the 'source' artist potentially profiting from being sourced, without the newer artist having to straight up pay them.

    • @XdivineExp
      @XdivineExp ปีที่แล้ว +17

      On the other side of things, I worry that it might make things worse. A lot of people don't really care about the 'paying homage' thing. They'll just be like "Oh, so this guy used my song as a reference without my permission and they even wrote it down in their references? Aww yiss, lawsuit time".
      At least most of the time when a song is similar you can just be like "Well there's songs a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, and i that all have similar styles, so it's not like I copied your work specifically, it's just in a similar style". If you write down that you used song 'a' specifically as a reference though then it might be much easier for them to sue for copyright.

    • @400_billion_suns
      @400_billion_suns ปีที่แล้ว +16

      @@XdivineExp yeah, agreed. It sounds like a nice idea but I think it’s naive. For one, it’d be impossible to truly list every single reference. Where do you draw the line on what’s similar or different enough to include or exclude? And what’s the end goal with it? To invite more lawsuits? Certainly it doesn’t make sense to use it as a means of reimbursement, because if you fraction off a song’s profits to 500 influencing artists, nobody is going to make enough money to even bother writing music.
      Nothing is truly unique in art because humans learn and create via pattern recognition and synthesis of things they’ve already experienced. We’re really not much different from AI in that regard, so I find it amusing that people are frantically trying to bail water out of the creativity boat when a massive tsunami of AI is about to crash down on them. There’s no putting the cat back in the bag and the ones who succeed will be the ones who adapt and figure out a way to take advantage of it.

    • @jimlanpheer5281
      @jimlanpheer5281 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      You mean like a 'liner notes on steroids' kinda thing? I like that idea but unfortunately, we (as consumers) can't even get record companies to provide the digital art and liner notes that should come with the digital purchase of any song or album. When i was growing up, that is EXACTLY how i learned about obscure artists who came before and influenced the artist's work - LINER NOTES. I used to read liner notes on albums incessantly to find out who that guy was influenced by in order to make the piece of art that i held in my hand.

  • @JC-fj7oo
    @JC-fj7oo ปีที่แล้ว +160

    The biggest problem is that there is usually jurors involved, and they try to pick non-musician jurors who aren't influenced by their own career. But that also means they don't understand things like a chord progression and a beat aren't a song. It's a genre. But when you look at it the way a lawyer would present it: Showing the sheet music for the groove and bass and stating that the chord progressions and everything is the same... It looks like straight up plaigarism to someone who has never written a song.
    It's the same thing that happened with blurred lines which also involved a Marvin Gaye song... If you strip away all the things that a person really shouldn't be able to own, the only part that was copywritten was "hey" which is barely even a word if we're honest. And that's a really dangerous precedent. How many songs have "yeah" as a lyric? Or any other word? How different does a song have to be to say it's original? Like Ed said, there's only so many notes. There's only so many timings, and only so much time you can make a song. And since you almost always need repetition to make the song a song... Then we probably ran out of "original songs" a long time ago. And that includes the bad sounding combinations.
    So where does that leave us? Do we want to live in a world where we would have to say "all the music has been made" and every new song would just get sued? Might as well just stop selling gutiars at that point.
    Now if Ed had written "Let's get it done" and had the same groove and bassline... That might be a case. An obvious attempt to rip off a song should be frowned upon. But does it matter legally?
    I think the real issue should come down to one thing "does it hurt the artist?" because if you ask "does Ed's song take anything away from Marvin's estate?" the answer is simply NO. Nobody was in the checkout line with a Marvin Gaye album and then put it back on the shelf because Ed Sheeran had a similar sounding song. It never happened. If anything, people discovering the genre through Ed would increase sales of similar albums including Marvin Gaye's albums.
    It's something we actually hear a lot about lately. It's called "standing" and it's very important. You have to be able to show that you were hurt in some meaningful way and that the law can do something to fix it. So if we break it down, Ed didn't take anything away from Marvin. And if the court were to rule against Ed, the court couldn't actually fix the issue because there's no damage to fix.
    As for the uber-long writing credits... I don't buy it. If the AI song samples the music, sure. You should definitely give credit for a sampled song. But if we force the norm to be writing every single artist I've ever possibly listened to or been inspired by, it's just creating a huge wave of lawsuits from every musician who's ever made any song suing any random artist who has a song in the same key and isn't listed on the ridiculously long list of every musician all the way back to Beethoven. And frankly that just brings us back to square one.

    • @Seirryu-heart8
      @Seirryu-heart8 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Nice analogy… now if only common sense is not a rarity nowadays maybe this lawsuit will not exist…

    • @RockG.o.d
      @RockG.o.d ปีที่แล้ว +6

      why doesn't anyone ever question why copyright lasts 70 years after artists death, but patents don't? Is it because there would be little technological advancements? because then you could argue that all you have to do is pay the patent owner for the right to use.

    • @JC-fj7oo
      @JC-fj7oo ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@RockG.o.d because a copyright is for a completed work. A patent is for an idea.

    • @RockG.o.d
      @RockG.o.d ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@JC-fj7oo so patents don't exist for completed work?

    • @JC-fj7oo
      @JC-fj7oo ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@RockG.o.d generally no. Completed works are protected under copyrights and trademarks

  • @unconditionalfreedom
    @unconditionalfreedom ปีที่แล้ว +1

    what a great, common sense, skilled explanation! thanks Adam

  • @amptransformers2257
    @amptransformers2257 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    @adam- I think the part at the end about adding a LARGE amount of song writers to each song is really kind of already done but maybe there should be some more-formal way of showing that. It is already being done in that artist's albums, or maybe the artist themselves is marketed or sold under a genre of music. So lets say a 'pop' star releases an album. By the album being listed as a 'pop' album you are automatically conveying that ALL current or former musicians that are/were 'pop' musicians in some way contributed to the creation of those songs. I wouldn't say those musicians necessarily can be contributed with helping with the creation of the album though, as there is much more involved with that like arrangement and all sorts of other things. Also...I like run on sentences.

  • @davehart.
    @davehart. ปีที่แล้ว +79

    Good video. "Ed Sheeran was definitely channelling a Let's Get It On vibe when he wrote Thinking Out Loud". I wonder if he really was when he *wrote* it or is that more when he *produced/arranged* it. I think i heard the story of him and Amy Wadge writing it together and they actually thought it sounded like a Van Morrison song, which would be a very different vibe. This difference between vibe and writing of lyrics and melody is important here I think, as there are plenty of examples where the melody and lyrics are separated from vibe. Andy Summers would tell you that his guitar sound and riff are as much to do with Every Breath You Take as Stings lyrics and melody, but the law would and does disagree with him!

    • @nedisahonkey
      @nedisahonkey ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Yikes, you follow Ed sheeran enough to know the story behind his songwriting process?! 🤮

    • @frankvaleron
      @frankvaleron ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Very well made point, although don't tell Van or he'll want in on the act too

    • @AJ-ed7mx
      @AJ-ed7mx ปีที่แล้ว +21

      @@nedisahonkey you should try it sometime, you might learn something

    • @nedisahonkey
      @nedisahonkey ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@AJ-ed7mx Try Ed sheeran's music? No thanks. I just as soon take a long stroll off a short cliff.

    • @maxwilson3531
      @maxwilson3531 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      @@nedisahonkey you're pretty cringe

  • @KnapfordMaster98
    @KnapfordMaster98 ปีที่แล้ว +89

    I always thought Like A Virgin sounded like a happy version of Billie Jean. Then I found out on the LAV tour, Madonna would literally switch to Billie Jean in the middle of the song. Funny how the 2 biggest pop stars on the planet at the time never had a squabble about that.

    • @larsreed7116
      @larsreed7116 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I may have my dates mixed up, but I believe the two of them had the same manager at the time. That probably kept a lid on any squabbles of that kind (and may have been the reason for the similar songs in the first place)

    • @milanforever7014
      @milanforever7014 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      because the songs have nothing to do in common sorry

    • @j.lindback
      @j.lindback ปีที่แล้ว +7

      If I'm not mistaken "Like a virgin" is in F# major, while "Billie Jean" is in F# minor, so there is some truth to that, it's probably no coincidence. It is also worth noting that Michael Jackson got the idea to "Billie Jean" from Hall & Oates, so it only shows that every new piece of music simply builds upon what was made before it! (But that doesn't necessarily mean you're entitled to receive monetary compensation for it.)

    • @milanforever7014
      @milanforever7014 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@j.lindback f minor and f major are 2 completely different keys,, the songs are nothing alike.. michael jackson said he was inspired by a song by hall and oates but again they got nothing to do with each other to the point that even hall said he never noticed any similarities,, a lot of people here seem to mistake inspiration with copying which is the case with ed sheeran

    • @LisaKatoFitchett
      @LisaKatoFitchett ปีที่แล้ว +10

      In an interview on VH1, the songwriter who wrote Like A Virgin explained how he took the riff from Billie Jean, played it upside down or backwards, and this was the basis for creating the song “Like A Virgin”. . . 😅

  • @BreakerBeat
    @BreakerBeat ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I think there is a big problem with making a citing system for songs. In academia you can cite because you actively read a source of information - you can't use another scientific paper unless you HAVE that paper and know you should cite it. With music it's not like you sit and listen to a bunch of songs in a style before writing in that style. I've several times written a song just to have someone tell me "oh, isn't that X song?". Either subconsciously because I've heard it 5 years ago, or by pure coincidence, artists can end up with similar songs. This makes it rather difficult to cite anyone. Half the time I wouldn't even be totally sure what genre to categorize my songs as.

  • @theproblembelief7549
    @theproblembelief7549 ปีที่แล้ว

    This is a great exposé. I will check the other videos also. What do you think of David Bowie in this sense - he has done the "adopting a style" thing so many times, but transforming it at the same time. Starman -> Somewhere over the Rainbow, in the chorus. Same melody, I think, for a couple of beats.

  • @SyntheticFuture
    @SyntheticFuture ปีที่แล้ว +22

    The problem with "ownership" is that if you go back far enough it becomes impossible to say who created something. Let alone that even the people that got famous with ideas and styles may not be the people who actually created it. But there's no way to check that. That song "earth angel" may very well be taken from some random street artist. Who knows. I would even go as far as to say "who can proof any subgenre was actually created by any particular band or group of people"? Things are not documented well enough to ever really know for sure.

    • @wietzejohanneskrikke1910
      @wietzejohanneskrikke1910 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Exactly

    • @partysodown
      @partysodown ปีที่แล้ว +13

      Imagine having to cite every song you’ve ever heard with the same chord progression as the song you wrote. It doesn’t seem feasible to cite influences, especially when many artists have so many different ones that they pull small nuances from

    • @SyntheticFuture
      @SyntheticFuture ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@partysodown I wonder if you'd also have to cite every notable instrument builder and classical composer. Those are after all the reason why your instrument has a certain tuning to start with 😶 And that tuning and those intervals are the reason why you end up with certain progressions. I wonder where the list would end. Just to be save cite every Neanderthal and tribe because rhythmic elements you may use in your song might lead back to then 😮

    • @calebader6695
      @calebader6695 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      It is actually impossible to own an idea.

    • @400_billion_suns
      @400_billion_suns ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Yes, it’s a naive idea. At some point people will just have to get over ourselves and accept that we’re all sharing in the same ideas of expression and just restructuring what we’ve already experienced.
      Nothing proves that so clearly as AI, which generates new stuff via pattern recognition and repetition, which is essentially the same way the human brain works. Except AI can do it in a far more prolific and efficient way, and humans are left feeling really un-special seeing how easily they are replaced.

  • @AdamLevyGuitarTips
    @AdamLevyGuitarTips ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Interesting take on this. Thanks, Adam. Also: Did you shoot this on a tour bus? Seems tricky to shoot in the wild - but this looks great.

  • @JAMUSA2018
    @JAMUSA2018 ปีที่แล้ว

    I know absolutely nothing about guitar,guitars and bass. However, I'm conviced that you are knowledgeable and know what you talking about. Thanks for making me more understanding of what is going on with the claim and counter claim of musical piracy

  • @delphic464
    @delphic464 ปีที่แล้ว +24

    Lawyer: You should sue!
    Artist: Actually, I'm not that concerned. What's the point of a lawsuit?
    Lawyer: So you can get the compensation you deserver.
    Artist: But I don't actually care that much.
    Lawyer: Sorry. Let me put this another way. I bill you $1,000 per hour and this will take hundreds of hours.
    Artist: So you will make significantly more money then me in the deal?
    Lawyer: Well...yes...but...this is about justice for your music!

    • @skyblazeeterno
      @skyblazeeterno ปีที่แล้ว

      Copyright is often not held by the artist and more often record company

    • @arissprings7972
      @arissprings7972 ปีที่แล้ว

      The idea that an attorney went out to find a song that sounded similar to Marvin Gaye’s is kinda ridiculous. Lots of attorneys are overworked as it is. The attorneys here were likely approached by the family and asked to represent them. A case like this would halt, and I mean halt, most mid sized firms based on the complexity and public interest alone. All of the other hundreds of matters would have to be worked on by others and it’s very likely not worth it unless it’s a specialized firm that they reached out to. But I know attorneys have that bad guy rep from lots of movies so it’s understandable.

  • @SodiumWage
    @SodiumWage ปีที่แล้ว +119

    It would be great to open an album cover and see a works cited page because not only would it give credit to where the inspiration came from, it would make discovering other music a lot easier. I don't know how many times I've paused your videos because you mentioned some obscure music that I went and searched for and listened to before continuing your video. I'd love to see Radiohead's works cited page, or Jack White's works cited page because then I could spend the rest of my life going down musical rabbits holes discovering all sorts of amazing new music.

    • @maxonmendel5757
      @maxonmendel5757 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      dinosaur jr

    • @koalanectar9382
      @koalanectar9382 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      I agree that would be really cool, but at the same time it invites a situation where somebody is gonna feel slighted because they weren't included in a list of citations they feel they should have been on. I feel like there has to be some limiting principle in who you have to credit, especially as people are getting more and more litigious about this stuff. I feel like we had a pretty good balance of fairness when only melody and lyrics were able to be copywritten, or at least there was a broad understanding that was the case, if not a legal one.

    • @bricelory9534
      @bricelory9534 ปีที่แล้ว +22

      And it puts an impossible task on musicians - when creating songs, you may have absolutely no idea what you have heard in the past that inspires a particular style, or frankly you might have stumbled it entirely on your own with never having heard the "originators" of a genre/style. In such cases, your lack of citation may seem like appropriation or some slight form of plagiarism when entirely none is there, nor would it have been possible to cite anyone.
      It's the same reason the vast majority of novels, and visual art doesn't have bibliographies - but many do have forewords and acknowledgements that do mention the intentional inspirations they had.
      It's really really bad more musical creativity, collaboration, and the conversation of inspiration to try to shoe-horn research practices into something creative and artistic in nature.

    • @thesoundsmith
      @thesoundsmith ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Your underlying assumption is that there WAS a 'source.' I've written dozens of sings with changes that exist in other tunes. Most of the time, I don't notice till I'm nearly done. That melody is my response to those changes, but only if Was aware of the other tune while I'm composing.

    • @5BBassist4Christ
      @5BBassist4Christ ปีที่แล้ว +7

      To me, this "Works cited" idea sounds atrocious and would lead to the death of many brilliant aspiring musicians. Why? Gee, I don't remember every single song I've ever listened to before. Imagine publishing a song with two hundred artists listed, and then you get a lawsuit because you missed somebody you may have heard at the grocery store. This whole lawsuit is a bogus money-grab, and if it passes it will either spell the end of copyright or new music. Perhaps copyright could use some serious revamping though.

  • @glenfordburrell1076
    @glenfordburrell1076 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Ed Townsend's: for your love, has a whiff of Charles Trenet's 1946 classic: La Mer (aka "Beyond the sea"), which can still be heard today being played by mardi gras bands in Louisiana.

  • @thijs199
    @thijs199 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    also the upward melody at ''hide the scars to fade away the shake up'' and stuff. just details make that song so sick in vocals especially

  • @eucherenkov
    @eucherenkov ปีที่แล้ว +57

    As a member of the philosophical academic community, your point regarding academic work and its citing of sources was spot-on. There's most definitely a parallel to be found between it and the practice of incorporating elements belonging to the musical repertoire of whatever genre or musical culture your original composition fits into. As in academia, to me (and to your point), it shows an engagement and connection with the "current" that you are working with; whether that work is "hermeneutic"* or directly inserted into that tradition. Appropriate and plentiful use of sources shows respect and understanding of those whose work allows you to do what you do.
    Great video, as always. I love your channel and your band, and I'm grateful that you spend so much of your time and energy in producing as much quality content as you do.
    *the use of hermeneutic here is intended to correlate with the practice of producing music which pays homage to, or interprets (thereby rehashing), another artist's work in a different style as the original. I'm not sure if the usage is appropriate but I hope it conveys what I meant it to.

    • @p_mouse8676
      @p_mouse8676 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I wrote this as a separate comment, but I actually think it really fits here as a good discussion.
      I think this is a really difficult one, since people can't own an idea. People can only patent the technical side of things or trademark a name or certain look. For example with video games, you can't protect the idea of a 2D platformer like Mario, eating little dots like Pac-Man or shooting demons like Doom. You can only protect the visual style and music. People can also not protect the idea of selling burgers with a car drive through system. So this is basically exactly the same idea. I totally understand of crediting the right people, which is the the most ethical thing to do. But it raises a very difficult question, to what extent? If somebody makes some reggae music, do you always have to credit Bob Marley? Or with gypsy jazz Django Reinhardt? That's practically not only completely undoable, in mainy cases these musicians also got there inspiration from somewhere or (accidentally) even copied someone else. That's gonna be a big rabbit hole spiraling down endlessly.

    • @bricelory9534
      @bricelory9534 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Thing is, citations in philosophical work represent intentional and purposeful research and direct engagement with the work cited. Artistic work and creative inspiration doesn't work that way - so many times, the germination of a song is just noodling around and creating some musical phrase you enjoy or are inspired by. It might resonate with you because you know exactly who inspired it, because you vaguely remember something like it on a radio at a gas station years ago, or because to you it is an entirely new idea (even if it's very close to something that is common to everyone else). Having to do research to find out what possible heritage your random musical idea might have will kill the vast majority of inspiration dead before it ever becomes a song.
      And if some version of a works cited section becomes the norm for music, it will falsely implicate anyone who is ignorant or truly wasn't inspired by something that they happened to sound like in some way - creating a place of guilty until proven innocent (which is basically impossible to do: try to prove you *weren't* inspired by someone when people believe you have been).
      Also, despite Adam's examples here, genre and style are extremely vague and notoriously difficult to pin down or define - so there is no clarity on who/what would be expected to be included in a works cited section anyway.
      And if, in this case, pop soul ballad conventions are so clear as Adam says, then the only evidence of direct inspiration from "Let's Get It On" is that the song is successful and well-known. But it could be entirely feasible that the songwriters used the conventions of the genre and innovated on them in a way that happened to be already innovated on. No person is regularly always conscious of the elements of every single song they have ever heard.
      The current system of artists freely mentioning intentional inspiration in forewords and acknowledgements is enough. We could encourage more musicians to be forthright about inspirations, but anything bibliographic is far too far.

  • @Logos_Loki
    @Logos_Loki ปีที่แล้ว +21

    Oh boy, here we go again

  • @k.m.2625
    @k.m.2625 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    While I completely agree with your point about the fact that musicians riff off each other all the time, and that genres are built around a formal framework that codifies them as genres, the problem with how to decide who needs to cite which source in songwriting credits is so incredibly murky and potentially fraught that I feel there will need to be a simpler solution or we'll all be reading legal disclaimers until we die and none of us will ever be able to make any music ever again.

  • @qwertyqwertz2802
    @qwertyqwertz2802 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Just saw Sungazer. Fucking amazing show. Adam was just walking around the crowd at the end like a normal human. Had to really work to keep my spaghetti from spilling

  • @stellabandante2727
    @stellabandante2727 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    You're amazing. This is so clearly articulated and would probably make for great testimony at the trial. Music is so much bigger than what meets the eye and is understood by the average listener.

  • @wtfserpico
    @wtfserpico ปีที่แล้ว +107

    The problem with listing every songwriter who had some input on your vibe or genre is that we have a tendency as humans to be drawn to the same things, and we can "spontaneously" generate things that we may have actually heard before but we aren't conscious of that when we put word and note to paper.
    If you require too much specificity then you will simply do away with writing new music in an existing genre altogether for fear of accidentally leaving someone that you've never even heard of out of your song credits and opening yourself up to legal action with no possible defense.

    • @kchilvers1758
      @kchilvers1758 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      That’s where AI would actually be useful. You could create a program to listen to your work and then automatically generate the reference list for you, so everyone who deserves credit can be credited, and you don’t need to worry about being sued.

    • @evilduck5691
      @evilduck5691 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      @@kchilvers1758 at that point you're crediting people who you may have never heard - what's the point? Why not just replace this system with a tool for finding similar music?

    • @kchilvers1758
      @kchilvers1758 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@evilduck5691 that’s a great point and a great suggestion. I guess the point is that you’re crediting people who you haven’t heard, but who have influenced the people you have heard, and I’m not sure that I personally would see that as a bad thing. But I’m not married to my opinion and would happily change my mind if points and opinions such as yours were further presented to me.
      Great suggestion regarding the tool for finding music. I’d be interested to hear your thought on what that would look like.

  • @christinaandme
    @christinaandme ปีที่แล้ว

    I love this! Smart and concise, not even one sided. Nice !

  • @tonyspoetry
    @tonyspoetry ปีที่แล้ว

    Great video. Very intresting.

  • @watsonunlimitedmusic
    @watsonunlimitedmusic ปีที่แล้ว +53

    Afro Caribbean music does NOT follow the "rules" of copyright. If feel and chord progressions are copyrightable, 2/3 of Afro Caribbean music copyrights are void and the entire genre of reggae now belongs to Universal Music Group (as I believe they currently own the publishing rights to the earliest recorded examples of the genre).

    • @asherburdick6319
      @asherburdick6319 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      Yep. In practice a citation model would mean that those who can afford to hire lawyers and musicologists to engage in motivated reasoning will be the best equipped to exploit the natural fuzziness of musical influence and genre development to bully their way into ownership of basically anything they like

    • @bryandavies213
      @bryandavies213 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      yeah and 30% of all pop music could be deemed plagarised under this "feel" parameter. for example the song that goes "im a rebel just for kicks" is a dead knockoff of "mr postman"

    • @markjames8664
      @markjames8664 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Don’t give UMG ideas😂

    • @DDoubleEDouble
      @DDoubleEDouble ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Yup, especially when you consider we have the history of “riddims” which anyone can hop on and profit from because the transformative-ness comes from the lyrics.
      We also take phrases from others’ songs and nobody cares because it’s a “cultural motif” (like if I incorporated the phrases “DRIVER” “zim zimmer” or “bad gyal, who nah tek back chat”, none of the original artists/lyricists would take you to court for writing credits on your song). Kind of like in jazz where they have “moifs” anyone can use even though technically someone came up with it first. Idk I think pop (and western music in general) has a different relationship with “ownership” over art.

    • @watsonunlimitedmusic
      @watsonunlimitedmusic ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@DDoubleEDouble Yes - exactly. This is also common in Calypso, Mento, Soca, Kompa, Zouk and even Cuban music.
      "Western".. but also really particularly American culture (which shaped so much of the music industry and music law) is often more individualistic. Although it's worth noting that European folk music traditions are much less so.

  • @GaryBeardsley
    @GaryBeardsley ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Adam, just such brilliant assessment, my friend. SO well stated, so clear, so appropriately convincing. Meaning, it is clear you are not self-serving; your goal is to assign proper regard for the original innovators and establish some kind of working model going forward for ALL of us. A gifted communicator you are, sir. And I fully agree with your theoretical assessment of the whole issue. I remain a huge fan. ;-)

  • @brianjensen1905
    @brianjensen1905 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I appreciate your explanation. Makes sense. You definitely sound like you know your stuff.

  • @cherrylimesatan
    @cherrylimesatan ปีที่แล้ว

    On an unrelated note (note! haha! 🎵) that is a great new haircut you got, man. It really suits you.

  • @DeSlagen8
    @DeSlagen8 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    0:50 When I saw Twenty One Pilots live, they mashed up Mulberry Street with Bennie and the Jets. Those two songs do sound very similar, and I think it was a cool nod to inspiration. I definitely think this shows that Sheeran could've been inspired. I personally don't think the songs are similar enough and I think the quality is so different and the time difference that it won't affect Marvin Gaye's track.

  • @paul88khz
    @paul88khz ปีที่แล้ว +462

    Imagine writing a really simple piece of music that nobody would describe as a work of genius and then claiming someone copied you when they write something similar. It's like a painter saying you can't use the primary colours because they already did and you're copying them

    • @unc1589
      @unc1589 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      Imagine writing “let’s get it on” and someone writes the music to it and says “this is not the same song! Nope! Completely different. Why? Because I say so!”
      Then someone plays both songs.
      Then Ed says “ you gonna believe me or your lying ears?”

    • @fearinwaves
      @fearinwaves ปีที่แล้ว +9

      @@unc1589 Bingo. I'm unsure how this whole video doesn't musically prove that Ed has just copied the song and made gazillions of money

    • @poekpally
      @poekpally ปีที่แล้ว +78

      ​​@@fearinwaves there is literally a limited amount of possible combination of chords. The big difference in songs is solely the lyrics themselves at this point. To say it's copyright because you follow a basic chord combo is beyond stupid as you would not have nearly over half the music we have today.

    • @fearinwaves
      @fearinwaves ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@poekpally if his argument is that there’s only so many pieces of music people can make before it repeats itself (total bullshit) then he needs to pay the man who came up with it first.

    • @user-hl2ey1sj5h
      @user-hl2ey1sj5h ปีที่แล้ว +59

      @@fearinwaves he didn't come up with those chords, it existed before him.

  • @juandiegosucaalonzo
    @juandiegosucaalonzo 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Guys, there is a Mexican song that also came out with those chords, the theme is called QUERIDA - JUAN GABRIEL

  • @capefry8323
    @capefry8323 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    The second I heard about the Sheeran and Gaye Lawsuit, the first thing I thought was "When will I get an Adam Neely video on this".

  • @beatmydrum
    @beatmydrum ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Adam! I saw you at Ableton Loop in Berlin back in like 2016 or 2017, when you were on an All-Star panel with Andrew Huang and Rachel Collier. Great to see you’re still making vids (and btw you look amazing!)! Just subbed to your channel and glad your analysis of these songs is being used in court! Keep up the great work.👌🏽👏🏽🍻🥁🎸

  • @daddymuggle
    @daddymuggle ปีที่แล้ว +14

    One problem with saying that someone owns a vibe, feel or genre, is that ownership will be credited to the registered composer of a given song.
    Yet in reality, even if we manage to choose the most correct seminal song for a genre, it's highly likely that the feel was created by largely uncredited people in the studio. So we won't be rewarding or acknowledging the right people anyway.

    • @AutPen38
      @AutPen38 ปีที่แล้ว

      Take away all the money from lyricists and give it to the bass players and drummers for great justice.

  • @reallyhughish
    @reallyhughish 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Would've been great to have used a clip of Axis of Awesome from after Jordan transitioned. I believe she did do a live performance of the 4 chord song afterwards. Thanks for the great video though!

  • @gdesilla
    @gdesilla ปีที่แล้ว

    Great video!

  • @TheMangoDeluxe
    @TheMangoDeluxe ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Copyright has gone bananas in the past few decades and it's stifling creativity.

  • @isaactfa
    @isaactfa ปีที่แล้ว +22

    I know that it's different and a song is a standalone piece of art that gets sold and profited from but this feels like if the Stanley Kubrick estate sued every filmmaker that uses the "wave of blood spilling out from an elevator" scene.

    • @arandombard1197
      @arandombard1197 ปีที่แล้ว

      Yeah it's a weird standard that we don't apply to anything else. Agatha Cristie's estate doesn't sue literally every murder mystery writer.

  • @calebkulfan9301
    @calebkulfan9301 ปีที่แล้ว

    my friend used to mash up "folsom prison blues" and "you are my sunshine" it was amazing.

  • @alexanderherbertkurz
    @alexanderherbertkurz ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Wrt to generative AI: "We need to have ways to protect the labour of human songwriters" ... thanks, Adam, for making this important point. And, of course, this applies not only to music ... the ability of AI to generate amazing content cheaply means that we human creators (on which AI is parasitic because it is trained on human generated content) need to think about organizing and defending ourselves.

    • @MolloRelax
      @MolloRelax ปีที่แล้ว

      95% of the revenues generated worldwide , from the sales of music created by Artificial intelligence should be allocated to medical research on disease and environment saving procedures. The 5% remaining could go to those people who put the smallest amount of effort to initiate the request for such music.

  • @DavidDiMuzio
    @DavidDiMuzio ปีที่แล้ว +13

    Thank you for all you do for music making culture and education Adam ✨🎶🤘🏼💛

  • @Foodgeek
    @Foodgeek ปีที่แล้ว +209

    I really hope they lose this case. Yes, it's sounds "inspired" by "Let's get it on", but they are NOT the same songs :)

    • @tylerkellylefty42
      @tylerkellylefty42 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      How is this guys comment from 10 hours ago?!?

    • @smokingONsumDRO
      @smokingONsumDRO ปีที่แล้ว

      @@tylerkellylefty42 wtf

    • @ethane.7364
      @ethane.7364 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      @@tylerkellylefty42 probably Patreon

    • @vikingthedude
      @vikingthedude ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Bro your comment just broke the time barrier

    • @serious_about_men
      @serious_about_men ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@tylerkellylefty42 probably time zone related

  • @albertdinha
    @albertdinha 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Firstly, just discovered your channel and think you have a very interesting content. And explanations are really smart. But i do have a question/suggestion. Can you create another video this time presenting examples of copyright infringements successfully indicted as such to show the flipside of the coin? Just curious

  • @wendyleeconnelly2939
    @wendyleeconnelly2939 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I agree with citing sources. I always wondered why that isn't a thing. From elementary school on they teach us about citing sources to avoid plagiarism. It always just seemed weird that when it comes to creative work that's not a thing.

  • @Bubu567
    @Bubu567 ปีที่แล้ว +42

    The song he is clearly referencing has the function of invoking the mood of a style long past. I think adequate time has passed for that to be ok.
    Even if it was disproportionately referencing a single song, if that single song is the most influential example of that style(Motown soul ballads of the 70s) for Ed personally, then it is totally expected.

    • @ruskerdax5547
      @ruskerdax5547 ปีที่แล้ว

      Why should any amount of time need to pass? How long should it be? What is considered "disproportionate" reference? The entire premise is absurd.

    • @ZacDonald
      @ZacDonald ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@ruskerdax5547 Copyright has always had a time element, it started with 14 years, then 28 years, and now life of the artist +70 years. Reworking a 14 year old song that already had a chance to make money and work its way through culturally is definitely different than reworking a song that's new. Not absurd at all.

    • @ruskerdax5547
      @ruskerdax5547 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@ZacDonald You can make money without copyright. When it comes to using violent threats to prevent others from innovating and making derivative works -- that's what copyright is -- 70+ is way too long. So is 28 years, 14 years, and 1 second. They're all arbitrary amounts of time used to justify threats in the false claim of enabling creatives to make money, but it's really just protectionism and stifling of innovation. Get rid of it all.

    • @ckwi2245
      @ckwi2245 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@ruskerdax5547 Sorry, flat wrong on the end point. Copyright and patent law are quite necessary to some extent. While I can agree Death +70 is grotesquely too long, but removing creative protections from the get go will stifle creativity and innovation far faster. Protecting core ideas allows smaller groups to make a profit on their ideas and creations to either market themselves or sell/rent the rights to. If you remove that the possibility for say, a highschool garage band could come up with a way of arranging music to basically be a new genre, and a major record label could somehow discover it and just run with it even if the original band could prove that they publicly released the concept well prior to the bigger corporation. It's really hard to put in effort to create something new or innovative when someone better off can just grift your idea and profit from it in a way a newer business cannot. The laws are supposed to prevent that and/or set a precedent for creators to be compensated for their creations.
      Now how Copyright and Patent laws work in most countries is appalling at best, and in many ways does along the lines of what you are thinking, and being abused to protect profits rather than protect creative and innovative ideas. The point that needs work is containing the scope of these laws and preventing the extension of keeping the idea. Far more egregious examples of copyright and patent law causing actual problems is easier to see in Pharmaceuticals and Disney.

    • @ruskerdax5547
      @ruskerdax5547 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@ckwi2245 You've been brainwashed into believing those laws actually protect creativity, but they don't. In your very example, you don't think think that could happen even now? All laws can be subverted with money, and if it's really a game-changing creative work but somehow also unique to a person, it's just going to be copied. The high school band has no hope of winning. The laws only exist for large corporations to use the violence of governments to protect their position in the market, not the other way around.
      The laws cannot be tempered. On top of that, any amount of time you think is appropriate for how long something should remain IP is completely made up and arbitrary, and will only be extended for the reasons I just explained. Their purpose is not to protect creativity, but to stifle it and allow only certain people access to profit from it. All IP is anti-market garbage. People would still be creative without flimsy, arbitrary laws that don't even work in their favor "protecting" them.

  • @feliscorax
    @feliscorax ปีที่แล้ว +156

    For me, as an occasional writer and poet as well as English teacher, this copyright case is a very dangerous thing indeed for creativity if Ed Sheeran should lose - I’m not even a fan, but for the sake of an artist’s freedom of artistic expression / creation, I hope he wins. It’d be like someone slapping a copyright on the Shakespearean sonnet’s rhyme scheme and 14-line structural limit and then taking any subsequent poet to court for using those basic elements in any subsequent poem. For me, it’s the same thing here: there’s a style and genre, it adheres to X + Y elements, and that’s it. Also: John Locke’s legitimation of property rights is quite flawed given his entire philosophy was a legitimation project for the enclosure of communal land into privately-held freeholds that benefited a very privileged élite against the interests of the general population. So, once again, it’s the same deal here.

    • @chihuahuadachshund4264
      @chihuahuadachshund4264 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I agree with that…. I like how you introduced the elite.
      I’m an inverted snob. It’s the way they look down on us. Like we’re dirt. Look at the nurses

    • @unc1589
      @unc1589 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Freedom of expression?
      Not on my song.
      It’s a direct rip.
      Shakespeare is in the public domain .
      Motown? Alive and kicking.
      He had to know better.
      He took a shot.

    • @larrybrown1597
      @larrybrown1597 ปีที่แล้ว

      If you write a Hi Ku, beware.

    • @skyisreallyhigh3333
      @skyisreallyhigh3333 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Damn, I just usually say capitalism is the problem but you put it so much bettet

    • @skyisreallyhigh3333
      @skyisreallyhigh3333 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@unc1589 How is a song with a different chord progression and different melody with different lyrics a copy?

  • @chipnuhrahcityofshelby1588
    @chipnuhrahcityofshelby1588 ปีที่แล้ว

    Great explanation!

  • @MarioDartagnan
    @MarioDartagnan 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Adam, perhaps you could do a program on what I consider the most modulations in a popular song. I'm Never Gonna Let You Go by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, produced by Sergio Mendes.

  • @Wadosan
    @Wadosan ปีที่แล้ว +10

    My only concern with citing artists in music is those many times when I come up with a cool melody or phrase only for it just to be me involuntarily quoting another melody from a song that I like lol

  • @ekkisoatima2449
    @ekkisoatima2449 ปีที่แล้ว +31

    Careful, Adam. I think you just signed yourself up to be an Expert Witness in the trial! 😂

    • @DerekHartley
      @DerekHartley ปีที่แล้ว

      @@user-mm8vw1ow1x I dunno, I reckon 12Tone could do a good job.

    • @maxp2305
      @maxp2305 ปีที่แล้ว

      ​@@DerekHartley if I'm not mistaken, Rick Beato may actually be an expert witness

  • @felicityb93
    @felicityb93 ปีที่แล้ว

    3:40 I wrote a song years ago that uses this same chord progression is in the style of Doo Wop, and is titled For Your Love. The melody (among other things) is different, but like... This demonstrates just how easy it is to ~copy~ someone else. I do not remember ever hearing Ed Townson's song, but I could v easily have been hit with a copyright lawsuit because of it.

  • @Mozzarella-and-Tomato
    @Mozzarella-and-Tomato 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Adam! Can you do an analysis of Marika Hackman's New Year and explain what makes it so extremely enchanting (and hard to sing while trying to play the tab on guitar??😂)

  • @gavinmackinney8484
    @gavinmackinney8484 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    I absolutely agree with you, Adam, and I love your work. I think that “Thinking out loud” is vastly different in the actual melody style and feel to “Let’s get it on”. It reminds me of how the Simple Minds song “Belfast Child” is based on the traditional folk song “She Moved through the fair” - but they are not interchangeable

    • @NmpK24
      @NmpK24 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Many older folk songs are usually classed as 'traditional' so copyright doesn't apply.

  • @birdwatching_u_back
    @birdwatching_u_back ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Interesting how the conclusion you arrive at kinda mirrors Roland Barthes’ conclusion in his “Death of the Author” essay-that works aren’t the products of individual minds, so much as they’re simply congealed out of a wider cultural landscape

    • @TallicaMan1986
      @TallicaMan1986 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      People don't have ideas, ideas have people.

  • @ruskerdax5547
    @ruskerdax5547 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Hello, fellow Neely. I like that your ideas about property are informed by thinkers like Locke, but when it comes to intellectual "property" I think the issue of scarcity precludes it (or rather, it should) from the same consideration. Crediting artists... and authors, scientists, inventors, etc., for their works and ideas is nice, but the idea that people can "own" ideas is absurd, and the entire system around trying to claim and establish ownership of ideas has resulted in progressively more absurdity and more limitations on human progress. I believe this will be one of the most important issues in the near future, and I wish more people would consider total abandonment of intellectual "property" for what it is: the use of violent force (of governments) on otherwise peaceful people in the effort to limit who can do what with ideas, including innovation and progress. I shouldn't even need to point out that it just so happens that the people benefitting from this disproportionately are those with the most wealth and control using them to crush innovative competition for the sake of easy profit, and truthfully it doesn't even matter, because any limitation in this regard is an injustice.

  • @DrumPixel
    @DrumPixel 11 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I remember meeting you at thomann, you lost your phone. I found it in the Piano department haha. That's where I recognize you from! that is so crazy :DDD hope youre doing well

  • @quitomotel
    @quitomotel ปีที่แล้ว +20

    The citation of sources part is a great analogy. Writers and musicians alike feel and look alien when they write/sing about a genre without taking something from what came before. Researchers even place little respect to new ones who fail to cite authorities/figures in a topic.

  • @revrenlove
    @revrenlove ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I think Van Morrison should weigh in... Crazy Love was released before Let's Get It On.

  • @YoungMommy14
    @YoungMommy14 ปีที่แล้ว

    Good video, brother...
    Consider me... Subscribed!
    Just a few points...
    1. Mainstream Rock, Rhythm and Blues abd Pop is all so unbelievably derivative and formulaic that these 'infringement suits' are absolutely inevitable.
    My guess is that we haven't established Razor Sharp, Precise metrics that any judge can employ in a completely objective fashion to distinguish between 'Very Similar but not similar to the point of criminality AND So similar that it's criminal.
    Where do we draw the line?
    The thing about the legal system is that (in theory) we should have very clear and consise metrics that ANY judge can use to ensure that the law is applied fairly, and evenly and (hopefully) without prejudice.
    How the hell can we decide upon objective metrics to use in these 'copyright infringement cases'? It's damn near impossible!
    If the justice system wasn't so unbelievably corrupt, THIS WOULD be a big issue! The system is remarkably corrupt, though so I'm not terribly bothered by this 'issue'.
    2. Is it just me, or is there something a little 'funky' about The 'Trustees that manage Marvin Gaye's Estate?
    The last 'copyright infringement' trial that I remember was ALSO courtesy of Gaye's Estate.
    They accused Pharrell and Robin Thicke for 'plagiarising' 'Got to Give it up' when composing the song 'Blurred Lines'.
    At least, that's what my memory is telling me.
    I also VAGUELY remember others issued by The Gaye Estate from years prior.
    Can this this all be just a giant coincidence? Could if be that The Trustees of Gaye's Estate aren't 'money hungry' at all and it just so happens that Marvin Gaye is simply the most emulated musician of all time? It is certainly 'possible'. It however is very 'implausible'.
    For the record, I very much dig on Marvin Gaye. He's a legend.
    I think that there may be something a bit 'sketchy' about the folks that manage Gaye's Estate.
    3. I recently rewstched a video courtesy of Michael (Creator and Content Maker of The Original V Sauce Channel). The video dealt with an age old philisophical query.
    Is there a finite amount or an infinitive amount of potential music that can be made.
    The answer is 'infinite'... UNLESS we're exclusively talking about music thst people will enjoy.
    If we're dealing exclusively with music that people will actually enjoy listening to, it's finite.
    You can play one quarter note of 'Middle C' on a piano and you can can call it a 'song'.
    Then you can do two quarter notes. Then 3. You can do this Ad. Infinitum. Would anyone be interested in listening to this, though?
    I doubt it. Kanye West may dig it, but he's a 'special case'.
    Anyway... Michael referenced this one particular Woman who did something pretty astonishing.
    She determined the maximum amount of 'Original Melodies' using notes from one octave.
    Here's the number.
    123, 511, 211, 975, 209, 861, 551, 554, 920, 705, 787, 036
    So... suffice to say, that's a pretty big number.
    'Why then', Michael asked, 'does all Popular Music Sound Incredibly Similar?
    Frankly, I think the answer is quite apparent.
    We're simply far less impressive than we percieve ourselves to be.
    Many, many people have espouced very legitimate concerns in regards to Artificial Intelligence.
    I echo many of their sentiments.
    That being said, I would like to use AI to concoct some Original Compositions that are all very dissimilar to the conventional 'formulas' that we've milked dry as a bone.
    Let's face it... The Counting Crows, Gin Blossoms, Goo Goo Dolls, Matchbox Twenty and Third Eye Blind cannot help us when it comes to this matter.
    So... I'm not opposed to some careful and cautious AI use just for 'inspiration purposes'.
    After we steal all of AI's awesome, innovative and progressive ideas, we can lie and give all the credit to Fred Durst.
    Who cares? AI will never find out.
    Oh... shit...
    It's reading all of this right now... isn't it?
    Dammit!
    Tell my Wife and Kids that I love them!
    I'm toast.

  • @fosbury68
    @fosbury68 ปีที่แล้ว

    "I Can Hear Music" was performed by the Ronettes (first) and the Beach Boys (cover) but it was written by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector.

  • @bizfix11
    @bizfix11 ปีที่แล้ว +269

    There isn't one single person who heard Ed's song for the first time and said to themselves, "This sounds exactly like Marvin Gaye!"

    • @jdhitc
      @jdhitc ปีที่แล้ว +30

      I did, but I just went with he a fan and they inspired him. Like this guy said lots of songs have a very similar sound.

    • @UKWizdakey2lyfe
      @UKWizdakey2lyfe ปีที่แล้ว +23

      The two songs are 41 years apart. Guarantee if they were 2-3 years apart everyone would notice. It’s not that the songs aren’t similar Marvin Gaye has just been forgotten over time

    • @EricAxel36
      @EricAxel36 ปีที่แล้ว +35

      Huh? I did, I assumed it was sampled.

    • @alblack3425
      @alblack3425 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      That's actually what I thought...like someone else said I thought it was as a sample...GUILTY GUILTY.

    • @zijun01
      @zijun01 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      He probably should have changed things up a little. If the melody, harmony, harmonic rhythm (and consequently the bass part and drum groove), arrangement and overall vibe are 'similar', that seems to go beyond 'inspired by'. With a more unique melody or a different harmonic rhythm, Sheeran's argument would be stronger. I would argue that the decision in the similar lawsuit involving the song Blurred Lines was wrong, but in that case the two songs had even more differences that the two in this case.