Ed Sheeran wins US copyright trial
Ed Sheeran, the British pop sensation, did not plagiarize Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" when writing his 2014 hit "Thinking Out Loud," a US jury ruled Thursday.
According to an AFP reporter inside the Manhattan federal courtroom, Sheeran stood up and hugged his team after jurors ruled that he "independently" created his song.
The heirs of Gaye co-writer Ed Townsend filed the lawsuit, alleging that Sheeran's song's harmonic progressions and rhythmic elements were lifted without permission from Gaye's classic.
The heirs demanded a cut of the profits from Sheeran's song.
Sheeran, 32, performed a number of songs from the witness stand during his testimony in the civil trial.
The English musician testified that he writes most of his songs in a day and that he co-wrote "Thinking Out Loud" with a regular collaborator, singer-songwriter Amy Wadge.
He claims the two wrote "Thinking Out Loud" at Sheeran's house in February 2014.
"We sat guitar to guitar," Sheeran said, according to reports in the United States. "We wrote a lot together."
The jurors were tasked with determining whether Sheeran's song and Gaye's classic are significantly similar and whether their shared elements are protected by copyright law.
Townsend's family had previously mentioned that the group Boyz II Men had performed mash-ups of the two songs, and that Sheeran had also blended the songs together on stage.
According to Sheeran's team, "there are dozens, if not hundreds, of songs that predate and postdate" Gaye's song, "utilizing the same or similar chord progression."
According to court documents, a musicologist retained by the defense stated that the four-chord sequence was used in a number of songs prior to Gaye's hit in 1973.
The copyright lawsuit was closely followed by industry members because it could have set a precedent for songwriters' creations and opened the door to legal challenges elsewhere.
It was Sheeran's second trial in a year, after he successfully testified in a London court last April in a case centered on his song "Shape Of You," saying that lawsuit was an example of excessive copyright litigation. The judge sided with him.
When "Thinking Out Loud" was released, it rocketed up America's Billboard Hot 100 charts and earned Sheeran a Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 2016.
In recent years, there has been a flood of such copyright trials, most notably in 2016, when Gaye's family - who is not involved in the New York lawsuit against Sheeran - successfully sued the artists Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams, and T.I. over similarities between their songs "Blurred Lines" and Gaye's "Got to Give it Up."
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