April 26, (THEWILL) – Edward Christopher Sheeran, professionally known as Ed Sheeran, has resumed the copyright infringement lawsuit instituted against him by Marvin Gaye.
The singer arrived at a US federal court on Tuesday for a trial over whether the British pop star plagiarised American music icon, Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ in his own 2014 hit ‘Thinking Out Loud’.
It’s the second trial in a year for Sheeran, who successfully testified at a London court last April in a case centred around his song ‘Shape Of You’, saying that lawsuit was emblematic of copyright litigation going too far. The judge ruled in his favour.
He arrived Tuesday at the courthouse in Manhattan silently and with his head lowered, wading past the throng of cameras and journalists stationed outside.
Issues in the New York case are alleged striking similarities and overt common elements between Gaye and Sheeran’s songs.
According to The New York Times which had access to the courtroom, Sheeran told the court he co-wrote the song with Amy Wadge.
“Yes, Amy Wadge and I wrote the song ‘Thinking Out Loud,’” referring to the ballad’s co-author,
The plaintiffs are the heirs of Ed Townsend, a musician and producer who co-wrote Gaye’s 1973 soul classic, who was also in court on Tuesday.
“I am here for justice, protecting my father’s intellectual properties,” Townsend’s daughter, Kathryn Townsend Griffin told journalists outside the courthouse.
“As Marvin Gaye would say, ‘Let’s get it on,’” quipped Ben Crump, the lawyer for the plaintiff.
Townsend’s family has pointed out that the group, Boyz II Men has performed mash-ups of the two songs, and that Sheeran has blended the songs together on stage.
Crump pointed to a 2014 fan video showing Sheeran performing a mash-up of his song and Gaye’s at a concert, which the lawyer said amounted to a confession.
Sheeran’s team contest the allegations, saying there are dozens if not hundreds of songs that predate and postdate Gaye’s song, utilising the same or similar chord progression.
“These medleys are irrelevant to any issue in the case and would be misleading [and] confuse the jury.”
A musicologist retained by the defence says in court documents that the four-chord sequence was used in a number of songs before Gaye’s hit came out in 1973.
“There are only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music,” Sheeran said in an Instagram video last April.
“Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 are being released every day on Spotify.”
