Music

Thank The Lord, Ed Sheeran Has Won His Copyright Trial

The British singer declared he would "quit music" if he didn't.

by Charles Rushforth  5 May 2023

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A New York court has cleared musician Ed Sheeran of plagiarism after he was accused of stealing a chord progression from the classic Marvin Gaye song ‘Let’s Get It On’ in his 2014 hit ‘Thinking Out Loud’.  

The copyright claim was levelled by the heirs of Gaye’s producer Ed Townsend, who co-wrote ‘Let’s Get It On’  with the RNB star in the 1970s. After initially being thrown out by a judge in 2017, a similar case was presented to US courts almost two years later. 

Speaking outside the courthouse, Sheeran vented his anger about the case exclaiming he was “extremely frustrated” by the “bogus” music copyright cases currently facing artists.

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“We’ve spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords, which are also different and are used by songwriters every day, all over the world,” Sheeran said.

“They are in a songwriter’s alphabet, our toolkit, and should be there for all of us to use.”

Experts Warn The Case Could Set A Dangerous Precedent 

If you haven’t listened to the many comparison videos on TikTok that seamlessly insert ‘Let’s Get It On’ into ‘Thinking Out Loud’, it’s easy to identify the similarities between the two hit songs. 

But despite the similarities between the two songs, musicologists testifying in the case argued the chord progression actually forms the basis of many pop songs worldwide. Notably, the progression can be heard in a song written prior to ‘Let’s Get It On’ in a song written by Phil Spector in 1958.

“Ed Townsend was not the first songwriter to use and combine these elements. It was not original,” Sheeran’s defence lawyer Ilene Farkas argued in court.   

The similarity of chord structures was famously demonstrated by the Australian comedy trio The Axis Of Awesome’s viral skit ‘The Four Chord Song’, which proves that a simple four-chord progression underpins at least 30 different pop songs. 

This Isn’t The First Time Ed Sheeran Has Been Sued

Sheeran’s frustration has been a compelling aspect of the case, with the singer threatening to “quit music” altogether if found guilty and alleging he missed his grandmother’s funeral as a result of the legal proceedings. 

The singer has also been involved in several similar lawsuits concurrently over the last five years. In 2022 Sheeran was cleared of copyright infringement involving his mega-hit ‘Shape of You’. Back in 2017, Sheeran reached a settlement with a musician who claimed he’d copied a musical motif in the song ‘Photograph’. Sheeran claimed he later regretted as it opened the floodgates to more lawsuits. 

Interestingly, after releasing ‘Shape of You’ fans immediately noticed similarities with the TLC song ‘No Scrubs’. Sheeran ultimately compensated the writers with a songwriting credit, and would later cite this case as an example of how he distributes royalties to artists that inspire his work.**

Music Copyright Isn’t Always So Strictly Policed 

Despite the verdict in favour of Ed Sheeran, the singer lost over $2 million in royalties for ‘Thinking Out Loud’ after the Performing Rights Society froze his payments during the proceedings of the court case.

US pop artist Dua Lipa is currently in a similar legal battle over her hit ‘Levitating’, which Florida DJ outfit Artikal Sound System claim to have written several years earlier. Dua Lipa’s legal defence recently urged a judge to dismiss the case, claiming the lawsuit was made “without any factual detail whatsoever” about the alleged similarities between the two songs.

Conversely, fans recently drew comparisons to a guitar riff in a track by Olivia Rodrigo and the iconic refrain of the Elvis Costello song ‘Pump it Up’. “This is fine by me,” Costello said. “It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did.”