I’m no Ed Sheeran fan, but he’s right: when it comes to musical plagiarism, guilt is in the ear of the listener | Simon Price

Musical history is littered with cases like the failed $100m suit against the singer, and they risk stifling pop musicLeave Ed Sheeran alone. Four words I never expected to write, but we live in very strange times.Cards on the table: I’m no fan of his music, but that’s neither here nor there when it comes to making sense of the recently concluded epic battle over alleged copyright infringement. To catch you up to speed: on 20 June 2014, Sheeran released his second studio album X, a worldwide chart-topper. On 24 September 2014, he released the third single from it, Thinking Out Loud, a standard love song about vowing eternal devotion, which was another worldwide chart-topper. In between, that July, BBC Radio 1Xtra announced its Power List of the most important figures in black and urban music, which, to much derision, placed the very white Sheeran at the top. This was nothing new: Sheeran had already received four nominations for a Mobo Award. And, at least according to the owners of Marvin Gaye’s 1973 bedroom ballad Let’s Get It On, Thinking Out Loud was indeed music of black origin.Simon Price is a music journalist and author Continue reading...

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