Ed Sheeran called the US jury’s verdict that he did not plagiarize Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On while writing his megahit Thinking Out Loud a victory for creative freedom. On Thursday, jurors found the English musician “independently” developed the 2014 Grammy-winning tune. In 2017, Gaye co-writer Ed Townsend’s heirs sued Sheeran for copyright infringement, alleging that Thinking Out Loud stole Gaye’s song’s melody, harmony, and rhythm. Sheeran’s hit’s heirs wanted a cut. The singer-songwriter told reporters outside court that it was “devastating to be accused of stealing someone else’s song” and that he was “very happy” with the outcome. Sheeran argued the jury’s decision would have ended composers’ creative freedom.
The civil case worried industry insiders because it may lead to further lawsuits and limit composers’ inventiveness. Sheeran’s second copyright trial in a year. He won a London court in April 2022 over his 2017 single Shape Of You, calling the claim excessive copyright litigation. Several landmark music copyright cases have occurred recently. In 2015, Gaye’s family successfully sued Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for Blurred Lines’ similarities to Got to Give it Up. The verdict startled many in the industry, including legal experts, who believed many of the musical components mentioned as essential and mostly in the public domain. In this month’s case, 32-year-old Sheeran testified with a guitar, playing recordings to argue the 1-3-4-5 chord sequence constituted a pop music ‘building block’ and could not be owned. He stated his friend and partner Amy Wadge started playing the chords for the song while visiting him in England and that they wrote the lyrics together. A defense musicologist testified that the four-chord sequence had been utilized in several songs before Gaye’s 1973 breakthrough. “These chords are a songwriter’s ‘alphabet’, our tool kit,” Sheeran remarked Thursday. “No one owns them or how they are played, just like nobody owns blue.”
Berklee College of Music forensic musicologist Joe Bennett told AFP that “sanity prevailed” in the case. “In music copyright litigation involving one or two bars of music, the plaintiff’s allegation of plagiarism is almost always wrong,” he stated. “Coincidence is common, especially with chords and short melodic fragments.” “Hopefully this sensible verdict discourages other spurious complaints.” The verdict went unanswered by Townsend’s heirs’ lawyers. In New York, investment banker David Pullman’s Structured Asset Sales, which owns Gaye’s copyright, sued Sheeran twice. Pullman and his lawyers say they learnt from the trial following the judgment. “We’ll know,” Pullman added.