Ed Sheeran’s Copyright Trial Verdict Reached
The jury has made a decision and a verdict has been reached on the Ed Sheeran copyright trial. Was he found liable or not liable for ripping off Marvin Gaye’s classic, “Let’s Get It On”? What did the jury decide? Keep reading for the details.
Ed Sheeran’s Copyright Trial Verdict Reached
As those who have been following this story know, Ed Sheeran was accused of ripping off a Marvin Gaye classic. Today (Thursday, May 4, 2023), the jury made a decision. Ultimately, the jury decided that Ed Sheeran was not liable for copyright of the song “Let’s Get It On.”
The estate of Ed Townsend (the co-writer of the song) hit the singer with a lawsuit back in 2016. The lawsuit claimed that Ed Sheeran’s 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud” stole several key elements from Marvin Gaye’s classic from 1973. The lawsuit argued that several components of both the harmony and the melody between the two songs matched up.
Turns out, this wasn’t the only lawsuit the singer was hit with that year. Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard also hit him with a lawsuit claiming his hit song “Photograph” was a rip off of their song, “Amazing.” The songwriters hit the singer with a lawsuit to the tune of $20M in damages.
Per TMZ, that wasn’t the first time those songwriters cried copyright as they also accused Robin Thicke and Pharrell’s “Blurred Lines” of ripping them off. In that lawsuit, the songwriters won $7.4M. They were noticeably using the same lawyers to go after Ed Sheeran.
The Singer Demonstrated His Creative Process
Ed Sheeran was in the courtroom during the legal battle. During his testimony, the singer busted out his guitar and proceeded to show the jury his creative process by playing the tune. The singer insisted that neither he nor his wife (who was also his co-writer) was even thinking about Marvin’s song when they created his 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud.”
Ed Sheeran admitted that he was not the type of artist that put a lot of time and thought into creating his songs. Instead, he preferred to pull inspiration from whatever was currently going on around him. Marvin Gaye’s classic wasn’t a theme of his life back in 2014, so it certainly wasn’t a factor in creating his 2014 hit.
The singer told the courtroom he would be “quite an idiot to stand on a stage in front of 20,000 people.” He also vowed he would be done making music if the verdict came back holding him liable. Fortunately, fans of his music can rest easy as that didn’t happen.
Did you think the two songs were similar? How do you feel about this verdict? Let us know in the comments down below.
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