Music

The Jury's Verdict On The Ed Sheeran - Marvin Gaye Debacle Is In!

On this day, we are all Plies singing in his car.

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Handwritten Music scale staff handwriting songAfter several years of court dates and lawyers’ fees, the main lawsuit between Ed Sheeran and Ed Townsend’s estate has come to a close. Towndsend co-wrote Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” and his estate thought that Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” felt a little too similar. But what either party thinks isn’t what matters here — it is what the jury thinks — and they finally returned a verdict:

A Manhattan federal jury deliberated for just 2.5 hours Thursday before determining that Ed Sheeran’s Grammy-winning song “Thinking Out Loud” did not copy from Marvin Gaye’s Motown classic “Let’s Get It On,” dealing a win to the British singer-songwriter in a long-running copyright case.

Sheeran breathed a visible sigh of relief, grinned and hugged his lawyers as the jury foreperson read out a verdict holding that he and co-writer Amy Wadge independently created the 2014 ballad “Thinking Out Loud.” Sheeran has been fighting infringement claims from the family of deceased “Let’s Get It On” co-writer Ed Townsend since 2016.

At first glance, the claim looks like it holds a lot of water. There’s no denying that there are similarities between “Thinking Out Loud” and “Let’s Get It On” (especially when they’re played really close together):

But from a different angle, one that looks structurally rather than just sonically, there’s a compelling story with a completely different outcome. Sure, they sound the same — but its because they share a chord, a very common one, and the stakes for assigning liability for merely sharing a chord would be too great. Similarity, even close similarity in a mashup, isn’t necessarily the “smoking gun” in IP lawsuits that Ben Crump, the attorney representing the estate, painted them to be. For example, I doubt people are out asking if A-ha stole from Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” when they made “Take On Me” after this performance, even if you don’t deny the similarities.

Sheeran had this to say about the verdict:

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“If the jury had decided this matter the other way, we might as well say goodbye to the creative freedom of songwriters,” Sheeran told reporters outside the lower Manhattan courthouse. “We need to be able to write our original music and engage in independent creation without worrying at every step of the way that such creativity will be wrongly called into question.

This isn’t some secret either — Sheeran himself has given examples of how protean cord progressions can be:

There would have also been a hell lot more legal liability if the case would have went the other way — just take a second to look through this very well put together rage list of artists that would be on the hook to pay The Teddy Bears:

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Though the verdict was a win for Sheeran, it was bittersweet:

Cheers to Ed Sheeran keeping his day job!

 

Ed Sheeran Wins ‘Thinking Out Loud’ Copyright Trial [Law360]

Earlier: Jurors Prohibited From Dancing To Ed Sheeran’s Funky Music (Or Is It Marvin Gaye’s)

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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