ED Sheeran, the English singer-songwriter, has emerged victorious in a closely watched copyright lawsuit over his 2014 hit song “Thinking Out Loud” a jury in the United States ruled on May 4 that Sheeran did not unlawfully copy from Marvin Gaye’s classic 1973 song “Let’s Get It On”.
The lawsuit, filed by the heirs of Gaye co-writer Ed Townsend, had sought a share of the profits from Sheeran’s hit song.
The trial focused on the musical building blocks of Gaye’s song, rather than the lyrics or the overall feel.
Sheeran had denied the allegations and argued that Gaye’s song only has routine elements that are not unique or protectable.
The verdict was a significant victory for Sheeran, who had been facing a potential payout of millions of dollars in damages.
He also spoke about the frustration of being accused of stealing other people’s songs and being used as a “piggy bank” for others to shake.
“I’m obviously very happy with the outcome of the case and it looks like I’m not having to retire from my day job after all. But at the same time, I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all. We’ve spent the last 8 years talking about 2 songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and 4 chords which are all so different and used by songwriters everyday all over the world. These chords are common buildings blocks which we use to create music long before ‘Let’s Get It On’ was written and will be used to make music long after we are all gone. They are in a songwriters’ alphabet, our tool kit and should be there for all of us to use. No one owns them. All the way, they are played in the same way that nobody owns the colour blue.”
“If the jury had decided this matter the other way, we might as well say goodbye to the creative freedom of songwriters. We need to be able to write our original music and engage in independent creation without worrying every step of the way that such creativity will be wrongly called into question. Like artists everywhere, Amy and I work hard to independently create songs which are often based around real life personal experience. It’s devastating to be accused of stealing someone else’s song when we’ve put so much work to our livelihoods. I’m just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy. I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake,” said Ed Sheeran.
The closely watched trial came to an end after 6 days and less than 3 hours of jury deliberations.
The ruling is a victory for Sheeran and the music industry as a whole, as it sets an important precedent for future copyright cases.
Sheeran’s victory is a reminder that the creative process is essential to the music industry and that artists should be free to create and innovate without fear of legal reprisals.
The trial however caused a significant inconvenience for the singer, and songwriter as,
“Having to be in New York for this trial has meant that I’ve missed being with my family at my grandmother’s funeral in Ireland, and I will never get that time back,” Ed Sheeran added.
Meanwhile, after the verdict, Sheeran released his latest album, “Subtract”, which marks the end of his mathematics-themed album series.
The album, which was made available to stream on May 5, features a total of 14 tracks in the standard edition.
However, fans can also purchase the CD or deluxe vinyl edition, which contains 18 and 23 songs, respectively.
