Copyright Infringement Current Event
About a month ago, the British pop star Ed Sheeran reached a $20 million settlement agreement with deal two American song writers over a copyright infringement case. The song writers, Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard, sued Sheeran in California over his hit song, “Photograph.” Harrington and Leonard claimed that “Photograph” was “verbatim, note-for-note copying” (BBC News, 2017) of their song “Amazing,” which was written in 2009. The song “Amazing” was published and recorded by the singer Matthew Cardle, who won the talent competition TV show, The X Factor in 2010. The two song writers also sued Sheeran's record company, Atlantic Records along with Warner Music Corporation UK, Sony Music Publishing, Asylum Records and other music and publish identities for a total of 11 defendants in the case. The basis for the copyright infringement case is that according to Harrington and Leonard the chorus of the two songs had “39 identical notes” (BCC News, 2017) which they claimed were “instantly recognizable by the ordinary observer.” In following the many headlines around this case, Sheeran and the eleven defendants initially responded by motioning to that the claim from Harrington and Leonard was essentially too long and confusing. This was surprising because in understanding copyright infringements from this class, one would think that the defendants would counter that this was fair use because not enough of the original song was used. They could have also countered that it was a transformative use of the notes in a completely different meaning and expression than the original song. What they did claim was that between the 11 defendants it was unclear from the claim who was being sued for what in the case. In my opinion, this motion just makes Sheeran appear guilty of copyright infringement because they did not even try to claim fair use. Also, Sheeran’s record company tried to claim that this case did not have jurisdiction in the United States because the company is based in the United Kingdom. This brings into discussion some of the topics covered last in Module 1 around jurisdiction. In January of this year, “U.S. District Judge James Selna agreed to pause the dispute in favor [jurisidictional] discovery,” (Cullins, 2017) both otherwise agreed to have the copyright infringement case move forward. The case was then settled out of court for $20 million and Harrington and Leonard are now credited as co-writers for the song. Additionally, the two plaintiffs have “gained a significant share of royalties,” (BBC News, 2017) from the song “Photograph.”