#4 Plagiarism and Fabrication

 Plagiarism in Music

    With the consequences that plagiarism holds you would think people wouldn't do it right? Well people or such as celebrities have a habit of plagiarism. Even though they are in the limelight, it doesn't exclude them from facing repercussions of their wrongdoing. Whether it was intentional or not preferably the latter they should be aware of misunderstanding or of someone else's works. Plagiarism in music is found very much in recent years and still continues to rise. Music plagiarism is the use or close imitation of another author's music while representing it as one's own original work. Plagiarism in music now occurs in two contexts—with a musical idea (that is, a melody or motif) or sampling by taking a portion of one sound recording and reusing it in a different song (Music Plagiarism Wiki).

 

    When it comes to plagiarism in music, there are many cases dated back to the 1960s.The one I am going to discuss today takes place in 2016. The celebrity swept in a lawsuit pertaining to his songs is Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran was caught in hot water when his single "Photograph" was sued for plagiarism by songwriters Harrington and Leonard. The songwriters claimed the song they wrote for artist Matt Cardle which was called "Amazing" was copyrighted. 

    The two artists were not directly involved and was the songwriters' decision for the lawsuit. for $20 million for copyright infringement with their song Photograph. The lawsuit says: "Given the striking similarity between the chorus of Amazing and Photograph, the defendants knew when writing, publishing, recording, releasing, and distributing Photograph that they were infringing on a pre-existing musical composition."Cardle clarified on Twitter that it was not his lawsuit, adding that he thinks Ed Sheeran is "a genius and 100% deserves all his success". The lawsuit was privately settled in April 2017, with no admission of guilt and an undisclosed sum (Amazing Wiki). When listening to both songs, you can find distinctively many similarities. In my opinion, the blame should be placed on songwriters for sending the song to Ed Sheeran to sing. I can see where plagiarism could arise because both artists are British and their songwriters run in the same circle. To capitalize on Ed Sheeran's part in this, he should have researched and thoroughly asked and dissected where the inspiration for this song came about. Considering the songs came out with only a two year difference is very suspicious. I think why the songwriters felt so strongly about this particular song is because they wanted credit to be given to Matt Cardle and be appreciated.  Check out the similarities below and decipher for yourself whether it was true plagiarism.