Imagine a painter in their studio, preparing for an exhibition. The painter is working on a landscape. The sky is midnight blue. The valley is Kelly green. Mountains loom in the back, a spectacular hue reflecting off a brilliant sunset. The painter reaches for vermillion, and then pauses. Wait a second, they think: Does someone own the copyright to this shade of red? Am I going to get sued for this?
That would be crazy, right? Regrettably and amazingly, in the music industry the aesthetic equivalent of this thought process is no longer as insane as it sounds.
The question of who is allowed unfettered access to the metaphorical color palette of songwriting is currently on trial in federal court in Manhattan. The English singer and songwriter Ed Sheeran has been accused of stealing his song “Thinking Out Loud” from Marvin Gaye’s 1973 classic “Let’s Get It On,” by the wife and descendants of that song’s co-writer, Ed Townsend. The supposed evidence? A similar but not identical chord progression used by both songs as a principal motif.
