Pop star Ed Sheeran won a closely watched trial over claims that his 2014 Grammy-winning song Thinking Out Loud copied key musical elements from Marvin Gaye’s classic soul groove Let’s Get It On.
(Bloomberg) — Pop star Ed Sheeran won a closely watched trial over claims that his 2014 Grammy-winning song Thinking Out Loud copied key musical elements from Marvin Gaye’s classic soul groove Let’s Get It On.
A federal jury in Manhattan delivered the verdict on Thursday, rejecting allegations by the heirs of Ed Townsend, Gaye’s co-writer on the 1973 hit. It’s the second time Sheeran has defeated claims of copyright infringement. Last year a UK court found that he didn’t copy from another song to create his 2017 hit Shape of You.
Sheeran and his legal team were about to get lunch in the courthouse cafeteria on Thursday, the first full day of deliberations, when they were summoned back to court to hear from the jury. After the verdict, he and Amy Wadge, his co-writer on Thinking Out Loud, shared a long embrace.
Sheeran also had an extended, friendly conversation with heirs of Townsend, including his daughter Kathryn Townsend Griffin, one of the plaintiffs.
Read the lawsuit here
“I am just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy,” Sheeran said outside court after the verdict, reading from a prepared statement. “I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake.”
Sheeran said the New York trial had forced him to miss his grandmother’s funeral in Ireland.
High-Profile Trial
This latest high-profile copyright trial — in which Sheeran took the stand and sang to the jury — was followed intently by a music industry that has seen an upswing in litigation over popular tracks in the past decade.
Read More: Ed Sheeran Copyright Trial Hinges on Music Experts, Song History
Judges and juries have been tasked with wading into often complex music theory and having to sort the testimony of competing musicologists about the similarities and differences between chord progressions.
Griffin’s lawsuit, filed in 2017, dealt only with the underlying musical composition of the two songs, which includes melody, rhythm and chord progression. The jury couldn’t compare the sound recordings.
But US District Judge Louis Stanton did allow plaintiff’s attorney Ben Crump to play a video that showed Sheeran seamlessly transitioning between the songs during a live performance. Crump called the video a “smoking gun” that proved Sheeran had lifted from the Motown classic.
In their verdict, the jury found that Sheeran had proved that he and Wadge created the song independently.
Weaving Between Songs
Sheeran testified that it’s easy to weave between songs and that he was inspired to create Thinking Out Loud by discussions with Wadge, who wasn’t named as a defendant.
Read More: Ed Sheeran Sings to Jury to Rebut Claim He Copied Marvin Gaye
His lawyer Ilene Farkas argued that the songs have very different melodies and lyrics and that the similar chord progressions are found in many other popular songs from bands like the Beach Boys and the Beatles.
“The music will stop” if plaintiffs can claim ownership of chord progressions, Farkas said in her closing argument. “Nothing will be left for songwriters to write.”
During his testimony Sheeran was asked how he would respond if the jury found that the Townsend heirs owned the chord progression at issue in the trial.
“If that happens, I’m done,” he said. “I’m stopping.”
Disdain for Experts
Outside court on one of the trial days, Sheeran was sharply critical of the music experts behind some of the copyright claims.
“Unfortunately, unfounded claims like this one are being fueled by individuals who are offered as experts in musical analysis,” he said. He criticized the expert witness for the Townsends, Alexander Stewart, a musicologist who testified for the plaintiffs.
Read More: Ed Sheeran ‘Insulted’ by Claims in Marvin Gaye Copyright Trial
Sheeran, who was occasionally combative on the stand, showed particular frustration with Stewart’s opinion that Thinking Out Loud copied Let’s Get It On.
“How would Dr. Stewart know?” he responded when asked about a note at the start of his song. “Was he there in the studio? Did he watch me play the guitar? Has he watched me play it live? How would he know?”
‘Really Wrong, Man’
“So he’s wrong?” Patrick Ryan Frank, a lawyer for the Townsends, asked.
“Yes, really wrong, man,” Sheeran responded. “Really wrong.”
After the verdict on Thursday he joked: “It looks like I’m not going to have to retire from my day job after all.”
Perhaps it was the afterglow. Sheeran still faces two other lawsuits alleging infringement of Let’s Get It On, brought by a company that bought royalty rights to Gaye’s song.
The case is Griffin v. Sheeran, 17-cv-05221, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
Read More: Ed Sheeran Denies ‘Smoking Gun’ Claim He Copied Marvin Gaye Song
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