Ed Sheeran is on trial, accused of borrowing from Marvin Gaye. Listen to the tracks at stake in lawsuits involving George Harrison, 2 Live Crew, Led Zeppelin and Katy Perry that may shape his case.

By Ben Sisario

There’s an adage, of murky provenance, that music executives like to cite whenever another copyright infringement lawsuit lands: “Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ.”

The trial over Ed Sheeran’s Grammy-winning song “Thinking Out Loud” (2014), which began on Monday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, is the latest in a long line of music copyright suits. In the United States, it goes back to at least 1844, when a New York judge heard a case about the unauthorized reproduction of a song called “The Cot Beneath the Hill.” The plaintiff was awarded $625 in damages, according to a historical database maintained by the legal scholar Charles Cronin.

For Sheeran, the stakes are much higher. He is accused of copying passages from Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” (1973); the family of Ed Townsend, Gaye’s co-writer, filed the suit in 2017. If Sheeran is found liable, a jury will set damages, which would likely be in the millions.

Here is a guide to some of the most consequential music copyright cases in recent decades, along with excerpts from their recordings.

But remember: It can be tricky, and even misleading, to compare recordings alone. In cases like these, the only material in question are the songs’ underlying compositions: the melodies, chords and lyrics that can be notated on paper. Elements specific to the performance captured in a particular recording — like the tempo, or the timbre of an instrument — are irrelevant.

Juries must decide not only if one song copies another, but whether the earlier song was original and distinctive enough to be protected by copyright.

“The problem with cases like this is that people ask the wrong question,” said Joe Bennett, a professor at the Berklee College of Music who works as a forensic musicologist in legal cases. “They ask the question, ‘How similar is song B to song A,’ whereas what they should be asking is how original is song A.”

Got that? In that case, put your headphones on and judge for yourself.

Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music (1976)

‘My Sweet Lord’

“He’s So Fine”

“My Sweet Lord”

George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” went to No. 1 in late 1970, and he was soon sued by the music publisher of “He’s So Fine,” recorded by the Chiffons in 1962.

Harrison lost the case in a way that has had a lasting impact on music: The judge determined that the former Beatle had copied the Chiffons’ melody “subconsciously.” That allowed plaintiffs in other cases — including the Townsend family, whose lawyers cited the Harrison decision in a pretrial brief — to accuse defendants of copying even if they may have had no intention of doing so.

For Harrison, the suggestion of subconscious plagiarism was deeply troubling, and gave him a sense of “paranoia about songwriting,” as he later wrote in a memoir.

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose (1994)

Pretty Women: Roy Orbison and 2 Live Crew

“Oh, Pretty Woman”

“Pretty Woman”

In 1989, the raunchy hip-hop group 2 Live Crew created a (surprisingly clean) parody of Roy Orbison’s 1964 hit “Oh, Pretty Woman,” and asked Orbison’s publishers for permission. The request was denied, but 2 Live Crew released its version anyway.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court, and 2 Live Crew’s victory there established important guidelines about “fair use,” ruling that because it was a parody, its creators could borrow from another copyrighted work without permission.

The Supreme Court is once again looking at the issue of fair use, in a case this term involving Andy Warhol’s appropriation of a photograph of Prince.

Three Boys Music v. Bolton (2000)

‘Love Is a Wonderful Thing’

“Love Is a Wonderful Thing”

“Love Is a Wonderful Thing”

This case involved two songs titled “Love Is a Wonderful Thing”: one by the Isley Brothers, from 1966, and the other by the pop belter Michael Bolton, from 1991.

Bolton denied knowledge of the Isleys’ song, though he was clearly familiar with the genre, having built his career “reviving the soul sound of the 1960s,” as an appeals court judge put it.

The jury found that Bolton and a co-author had infringed the older song, and set a damages award of $5.4 million, which was upheld on appeal. Many music experts doubted that there was any significant musical similarity between the two songs, and still point to Three Boys as a key case where a jury got it wrong.

Williams v. Bridgeport Music (2018)

‘Blurred Lines’

“Got to Give It Up”

Blurred Lines

This was the most controversial music copyright case since “My Sweet Lord.”

Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams were sued in 2013 over their song “Blurred Lines” by members of Gaye’s family, who argued that it copied his disco-era hit “Got to Give It Up.” The two musicians were ordered to pay about $5 million, plus half of future royalties for the song.

Thicke and Williams argued that any kinship between the two songs was a result of generic components, and that no concrete similarities existed. The Gayes’ expert pointed to a “constellation” of various musical elements, which struck many commentators as vague but was enough to persuade the jury. The verdict was upheld on appeal, but a dissenting judge said it allowed the Gaye estate “to accomplish what no one has before: copyright a musical style.”

Adam Neely, a jazz musician who has posted detailed videos on YouTube analyzing current copyright cases, said that much the same thing is at stake in Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” case.

“The fear is that you can own a groove,” Neely said. “And because you can own a groove, you can own genre.”

Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin (2020)

‘Stairway to Heaven’

“Spirit”

“Stairway to Heaven”

Led Zeppelin’s history of borrowing from other creators is well documented; in many cases, the band eventually acknowledged the debt and added the names of blues artists like Willie Dixon to song credits. But in this dispute, over the band’s ultra-classic “Stairway to Heaven,” the group defended itself vigorously, and won.

The case was brought by a trustee of the songs of Randy Wolfe, whose band, Taurus, occasionally played alongside Led Zeppelin in its early days. Taurus’s 1968 song “Spirit” includes an acoustic passage with an arpeggiated chord progression and a descending chromatic bass line that resembles the pastoral introduction to “Stairway.” But even if the passages are similar, are those elements distinctive enough to qualify as “protectable,” as lawyers say?

Led Zeppelin won the case at trial, and in 2020 an appeals court upheld the verdict. The judges’ ruling offered guidance to courts about how copyright law applies to works that involve “commonplace elements” that may be in the public domain.

Gray v. Perry (2020)

Katy Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’

“Joyful Noise”

“Dark Horse”

The impact of the Led Zeppelin case was immediate. Months earlier, a jury had decided that Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” copied an eight-note sequence from an obscure Christian rap song (“Joyful Noise” by Flame), and awarded the plaintiffs $2.8 million in damages.

But one week after the ruling in the Led Zeppelin appeal, the judge in Perry’s case threw out the jury’s verdict, citing the decision in determining that the eight-note passage was “not a particularly unique or rare combination,” and therefore was not protected by copyright. Perry’s lawyer described it as a lifting of “the ‘Blurred Lines’ curse.”

Griffin v. Sheeran (2023)

‘Thinking Out Loud’

“Let’s Get It On”

“Thinking Out Loud”

In a long-running case that was delayed in part by the coronavirus pandemic, heirs of Townsend, Gaye’s co-writer of “Let’s Get It On,” accuse Sheeran of copying the “heart” of that song for his hit “Thinking Out Loud.”

Expert witnesses on both sides of the case agree that the songs feature a nearly identical chord progression. And they acknowledge that those chords have turned up in numerous other tracks as well. But the case centers on whether those musical elements in “Let’s Get It On” — the chords, as well as the syncopated rhythmic pattern in which they were played — were original and distinctive enough that their reappearance in “Thinking Out Loud” is infringement, or just the recycling of common musical features.

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