Origi-banality?

"You found me ripping the writtens out of the pages they sit in, and never once I get bitten because plagiarismCopying someone else's work and pretending it is your own. is hidden," raps Ed Sheeran in his song Take It Back.

But the hitmaker has been bitten a few times as of late. In 2016, he was struck with a copyrightA legal term used to describe the right someone has to copy and distribute a piece of creative work. claim for his single Photograph. In 2022, he won a court case over his successful song Shape Of You. And now, he is being brought back in front of a jury over his 2014 hit Thinking Out Loud.

Many have noted its similarities with Marvin Gaye's legendary song Let's Get It On, released in 1973.

Sheeran took the stand on Tuesday, testifying under oath that: "It is my belief that most pop songs are built on building blocks that have been freely available for hundreds of years."

In this case, the "building blocks" referenced are a chord progression. Both songs are made up of a sequence of four ascending chords, though the second in the sequence differs in Thinking Out Loud and Let's Get It On.

But some note that around 60,000 new tracks are uploaded to Spotify each day, and the vast majority of pop music is based on the same four chords.

The case has caused worry among musicians. After all, many say that originality was never the point.

Shakespeare is a popular example. The most towering figure in English literature, nowadays he might be labelled a pesky thief: the story of Othello was nicked from an Italian short story, and Romeo and Juliet was derived from Arthur Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.¹

But to seriously accuse Shakespeare of plagiarism would be absurd. During the RenaissanceThe "rebirth" of Western learning began in the late 15th century, as European scholars rediscovered ancient manuscripts and began to make developments in science and art., inheriting from earlier traditions and texts was seen as the highest form of creativity.

Nor is Shakespeare the only famous creative "magpie". Picasso openly reworked and took influence from the work of his peers and predecessorsThe people that came before you. , saying "I have no qualms about taking anything I want from them."

Yes: We ourselves are all unique and individual, and therefore our work is too. If you steal parts of somebody else's work, you are appropriating their entire identity.

No: There are more than 100 billion of us who have existed throughout time. Originality is logistically impossible. Every idea has already been had, every chord pattern used, and every picture drawn.

Or... There is a difference between drawing careful influence from other creators, and openly stealing from them whilst refusing to acknowledge their intellectual property. The former encourages creativity; the latter encourages laziness.