Did I Actually Write This? Originality, Plagiarism & Influence

Did I Actually Write This? Originality, Plagiarism & Influence

Thursday December 7th 2023

Even before I began to write music, I realised there was going to be a problem. We’re all individuals, the sum of our experiences, whatever….so at what point does any artistic work become yours, and not a rip off of something you’ve seen or heard before?

It’s a rabbit hole. Red pill / blue pill. In May this year, Ed Sheeran defended a copyright claim that “Thinking Out Loud” was not a musical derivation of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On”, but rather a piece of work that shared “the letters of the alphabet of music”. Just a few years previously, beneficiaries also sued Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over similarities between their song “Blurred Lines”, and the Marvin Gaye track, “Got To Give It Up”. Spoiler alert if you hadn’t heard, Ed won, Robin and Pharrell didn’t, but many industry insiders argue both decisions were actually wrong.

I could encourage you to listen to all the songs in question and draw your own conclusions, but for the sake of keeping the ship on course, I suggest you watch this comparison video by music producer and youtuber, Rick Beato.

There are two, additional related videos on his channel. In the first he offers an opinion that potentially, a portion of the royalties might be due as the tempo, instrumentation and execution are obviously influenced by Gaye’s track, but the lyrics, melody, and chorus are completely different. In the last he explains some of the music theory behind the analysis.

His “take home” overall was that songwriters need to be honest, and should always attempt to be original. If you hear somebody else’s voice in your work too clearly, turn away, or at least from an educational perspective, try to build upon it. After all, every song you write that misses the mark in some way is just fuel for the machine that eventually churns out the better stuff. No artist has a body of equally successful work.

My interest in covering this as a blog topic was sparked by a song I’m working on, with the working title of “Good Heart”, which to me is in part clearly inspired by “Tighten Up” by The Black Keys. Clearly this is only a practical problem if I’d sold 150 million records like Ed Sheeran and had plans to release it. Neither of these are true.

Although I was initially happy at the time to accept the similarity, I now feel I ought to push a bit harder to make it my own, if I can, which is maybe what Ed should have done, but there you go……

Record Time

No record time this time around, although like I said, feel free to check out the records mentioned within. I would recommend Rick Beato’s content on all manner of musical subjects. You might not agree, but he does have an informed and professional opinion.