<h2 class="eplus-wrapper wp-block-heading" id="crosshead">Origi-banality?</h2>

"You found me ripping the writtens out of the pages they sit in, and never once I get bitten because plagiarism 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 copyright claim for his single Photograph. In 2022, he won a court case against Sami Switch, who accused him of plagiarism in his wildly successful song Shape Of You. And now, he is being brought back in front of a jury over his 2014 hit Thinking Out Loud.

Sheeran claims the song was inspired by his grandparents, but many have noted its similarities with Marvin Gaye's legendary song Let's Get It On, released in 1973. Legal action is being brought against Sheeran by the family of Gaye's co-writer, Ed Townsend.

Sheeran took the stand on Tuesday, testifying under oathA promise or vow. 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.

It might seem like common sense that common chord sequences, harmonies and rhythms should remain in the public domain. Around 60,000 new tracks are uploaded to Spotify each day, yet the vast majority of pop music is based on the same four chords - three of which were used in Pachelbel's Canon, written in the 17th Century.

But this has been disputed in recent years. In 2015, singers Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams had to pay $5m (£4m) in damages after their song Blurred Lines was judged to have infringed on the copyright of Marvin Gaye's Got to Give It Up.

The trend has caused worry among musicians. After all, many say that originality was never the point. It is almost impossible to avoid being derivativeSomething based on another source or version. - but this does not take creativity out of the picture.

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 by Cinthio, and Romeo and Juliet was derived from Arthur Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, itself a retelling of an older Italian tale.¹

But to seriously accuse Shakespeare of plagiarism would be absurd: the concept did not even exist when he was writing. In fact, 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 predecessors, saying "I have no qualms about taking anything I want from them." Voltaire said that "originality is nothing but judicious imitation". The literary critic Harold Bloom famously stated that "the meaning of a poem is another poem."

But others fear that giving free rein to creative loans will homogenise our tastes. Hits from 2014 should not sound the same as those from 1973, they say, and popular music should be striving to move forward, not disputing who did the same tired tropes best.

Yes: We ourselves are all unique and individual, and therefore our work is too. If you steal key hallmarks 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 ownership. The former encourages creativity; the latter encourages laziness.

Oath - A promise or vow.

Derivative - Something based on another source or version.

Renaissance - The "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.