Back in July we shared a story about ‘80s and ‘90s reggae duo Steely & Clevie. They are suing several reggaeton artists for using the drum beat Steely & Clevie created for their song “Fish Market.” In the years since the duo recorded that drum beat, it has been remixed and sampled so much that, to many people, it is the sound of modern reggae. Essentially, it has become a fundamental musical building block of the genre.

What does that have to do with Ed Sheeran and Marvin Gaye?

The Many Music Battles of One Ed Sheeran

As we touched on in that reggaeton post, the past several years have seen a slew of cases calling into question exactly which parts of music can be protected – including several cases with Mr. Sheeran himself. In fact, Ed Sheeran has been involved in two claims against two different parties for the exact same song – “Thinking Out Loud.” 

In 2017, the family of Ed Townsend sued Sheeran for similarities between “Thinking Out Loud” and Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” (Townsend was co-writer of the song). In 2018, as one-ninth owner of Gaye’s song, Structured Asset Sales (SAS) brought a separate lawsuit against Sheeran for the same reason.

That first case was resolved in Sheeran’s favor in May 2023, when a jury found that he did not infringe upon the copyright for “Let’s Get It On.” The SAS case, however, was still ongoing. 

Chord Progression and Harmonic Rhythm Too Unoriginal to Be Infringement

Following the resolution of the Townsend’s family case against Ed Sheeran, the district court in the SAS case granted Sheeran’s motion for reconsideration, essentially dismissing the claim. SAS appealed, but recently lost that appeal when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the earlier dismissal. They agreed that the musical similarities were “too unoriginal” to meet infringement standards.

This is possibly a big win for lots of currently-working musicians. For several years, starting with the ruling against “Blurred Lines,” a number of high-profile cases against modern songs were decided in favor of older copyright holders. This caused alarm in the music industry, with big questions about what current musicians had to do to ensure their music was considered original.

However, the tide has seemingly started to turn in the past few years, with a number of court rulings denying that infringement occurred. Whether things will continue this way, of course, is still an open question, with the reggaeton case one of the biggest dominoes yet to fall.