A US court has ruled that Ed Sheeran did not copy Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On when composing his own hit single, Thinking Out Loud.
The British singer-songwriter had denied stealing elements of the song for his 2014 worldwide hit.
Heirs of Gaye’s co-writer argued that Sheeran, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Publishing owed them money for copyright infringement.
Sheeran reportedly told the trial in New York that if he was found guilty he would give up his music career.
“If that happens, I’m done, I’m stopping,” he said when asked about the toll the trial at Manhattan federal court was taking on him.
During the civil trial, Sheeran sang and played parts of Thinking Out Loud on the guitar.
He said he wrote the song at home in England with his friend Amy Wadge and had been inspired by his grandparents and a new romantic relationship he had just begun.
Sheeran’s lawyer, Ilene Farkas, told the jurors that similarities in the chord progressions and rhythms of the two songs were “the letters of the alphabet of music.”
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“These are basic musical building blocks that songwriters now and forever must be free to use, or all of us who love music will be poorer for it,” she said.
Keisha Rice, who represented the heirs of Gaye’s co-writer Ed Townsend said her clients were not claiming to own basic musical elements but rather “the way in which these common elements were uniquely combined.”
“Mr Sheeran is counting on you to be very, very overwhelmed by his commercial success,” she said, urging jurors to use their “common sense” to decide whether the songs are similar.
Last year Sheeran won a copyright battle at the High Court in London over his 2017 Shape of You.
Sheeran is also facing claims over Thinking Out Loud from a company owned by investment banker David Pullman that holds copyright interests in the Gaye song.
In 2015 Gaye’s heirs won a $5.3m judgment from a lawsuit claiming the Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams song Blurred Lines copied Gaye’s Got to Give It Up.
Talk to a Lawyer key facts:
- Ed Sheeran, one of the most popular singers and songwriters of our time, has recently won a lawsuit that accused him of copying parts of Marvin Gaye’s classic song “Let’s Get It On” for his hit “Thinking Out Loud”.
- The lawsuit was filed by the heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On” with Gaye in 1973.
- They claimed that Sheeran’s song had “striking similarities” and “overt common elements” with their song, such as the ascending four-chord sequence and its rhythm.
