-Musicians often take inspiration from other artists.
Two songs may sound similar,
but when does that cross the line?
When does homage become copyright infringement?
Music plagiarism is as old as, well, music itself.
In the 1980s and '90s,
rap music brought music sampling into the mainstream.
With it came new questions of copyright.
♪ Ice, ice baby ♪
Vanilla Ice's 1989 hit "Ice Ice Baby"
borrowed from another hit that only came out a few years
earlier, "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie.
-That's the way theirs goes.
Ours goes "ding, ding, ding, digga, ding, ding.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, digga, ding, ding."
That little bitty ding -- it's not the same.
-It was.
The case was settled out of court with Bowie
and all the members of Queen receiving a songwriting credit
and Vanilla Ice getting a public shaming.
Most music copyright infringement cases
are settled out of court,
resulting in shared credit and royalties.
It's extremely rare for music copyright infringement cases
to make it to a jury.
The effect is that most artists are more cautious
about their musical influences and companies are more vigilant
about clearing songs that their artists interpolate --
that means when a song doesn't use an original sample
but reproduces it.
As an example, according to Rolling Stone, in 2017,
Taylor Swift's representatives reached out to Right Said Fred,
singers of "I'm Too Sexy,"
prior to releasing her single "Look What You Made Me Do"
and gave them songwriting credit.
That's the way these things usually work,
but what happens when things don't go so smoothly?
"Blurred Lines," the biggest hit of 2013,
already had some problems,
but its legal ones were due to its similar groove
with Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up."
Marvin Gaye recorded "Got to Give It Up"
in the studio in 1977, and a copyright was filed.
-The written notation that people would file
at the copyright office was a sketch,
was what's called a lead sheet,
and it was only done to actually get the registration on file.
So, there were many elements of what Marvin Gaye
created in the studio that was not in this written notation.
-Because "Got to Give It Up" was copyrighted a year
before the Copyright Act of 1976
became effective, a judge ruled that the claim was limited
to what was on the file at the copyright office --
the lead sheet.
-So, over night, our claim in the case went from like
14 or 15 different elements of "Got to Give It Up"
that we claimed were copied in "Blurred Lines"
to like four or five.
-The judge wouldn't allow Busch to play
the full recording of the song
because that would've exposed the jury
to elements outside the written notation on the lead sheet.
Here's what the lead sheet sounds like.
-In any given measure,
there's often more than one element that's the same.
Usually, there was the bass line at the same time
that other similarities were coming out.
And there were only two or three bars
in the entirety of "Blurred Lines"
that contained none of the similar features.
-Those similar features made up what Judith referred
to as a "constellation of similarities"
that made the two songs too much alike.
The jury agreed.
The Gaye estate won the case
and its appeals with the judgment of $5.
3 million and a share of the royalties.
The decision was controversial to some artists,
including the co-producer of "Blurred Lines,"
Pharrell, who said the ruling would stifle creativity
if artists lose their "freedom to be inspired."
Which brings us to Ed Sheeran,
who's in trouble for copyright infringement again.
In 2017 alone, two of his songs fell under scrutiny --
"Shape of You."
♪ Girl, you know I want your love ♪
♪ Your love was handmade for somebody like me ♪
♪ I don't want no scrubs ♪
♪ A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me ♪
"Photograph."
♪ So you can keep me ♪
♪ Inside the pocket of your ripped jeans ♪
♪ How did you find me? ♪
♪ You came out of nowhere like lightning ♪
And one he co-wrote with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill,
"The Rest of Our Life."
And now "Thinking Out Loud" has been accused of the heirs
of Marvin Gaye's co-writer Ed Townsend
of ripping off another Marvin Gaye
song, "Let's Get It On."
It might not help Sheeran's case
that he was recorded switching back and forth
between the two songs in concert.
♪ Sha, la, la, la, la, la ♪
♪ Let's get it on ♪
So, listen to the Ed Sheeran song.
♪ 'Cause, honey, your soul could never grow old ♪
And Marvin Gaye's.
♪ Let's get it on Whoo ♪
What do you hear?
Inspiration or infringement?
♪ We're all sensitive people ♪