Looks like Ed Sheeran will continue to make music since he’s just been cleared of infringing copyright in the Marvin Gaye lawsuit.
A jury in New York has ruled that British singer-songwriter is not liable for copyright infringement in a case that was centered on whether he ripped off Marvin Gaye’s hit track “Let’s Get It On.” for his own “Thinking Out Loud.”
This is a pretty big victory for the recording artist who made an earlier claim that he would quit the industry if he lost the case. “If that happens, I’m done, I’m stopping,” he previously said. “I find it really insulting to devote my whole life to being a performer and a songwriter and have someone diminish it.” It was also an emotional day for the Sheeran and his team as he hugged his lawyer while his wife Cheery Seaborn and co-writer Amy Wadge were reportedly in tears.
Sheeran’s lawyer, Ilene Farkas, had told the jurors in Manhattan federal court that similarities in the chord progressions and rhythms of Gaye’s classic and Sheeran’s hit Thinking Out Loud were basically common, comparing them to “the letters of the alphabet of music”. “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.
However, But Keisha Rice, who represents Gaye’s co-writer Ed Townsend who sued Sheeran and his record label, said her clients had not claimed to own basic musical elements. However, she pointed out “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 she had urged the jurors to use their “common sense” to decide whether or not the songs are similar.
Townsend’s heirs officially sued Sheeran, his label Warner Music Group and his music publisher Sony Music Publishing in 2017 claiming infringement of their copyright interest in the Gaye song.
Sheeran’s latest victory comes a year after he won a trial in London in a separate copyright case over his hit Shape of You.
Despite this latest loss for Gaye’s heirs, they did win a $5.3m judgment in 2015 from a lawsuit claiming the Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams song Blurred Lines copied Gaye’s Got to Give It Up.
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