Ed Sheeran has defeated a second lawsuit that alleged he imitated Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On for his song Thinking Out Loud, two weeks after he prevailed in another high-profile copyright case regarding the two songs.
A district judge in Manhattan, Louis Stanton, dismissed the case that had been brought against Sheeran by Structured Asset Sales (SAS), a company owned by an investment banker David Pullman. Pullman essentially owns a portion of Let’s Get It On, namely part of the song’s copyright originally belonging to Ed Townsend, who wrote the song with Gaye in 1973.
SAS had alleged “the combination of the chord progression and the harmonic rhythm used in Thinking Out Loud is substantially similar to that in Let’s Get It On, and thus infringes the work”.
But the judgment against SAS found that the chord progression that Sheeran was alleged to have copied for Thinking Out Loud wasn’t unique enough to merit a copyright claim. “That is especially true here where the chord progression and the harmonic rhythm (how the chord progression is played) in Let’s Get It On do not form a pattern, but instead essentially merge into one element,” the judgment reads.
SAS’s case specifically alleged copyright infringement against the sheet music of Let’s Get It On. Sheeran faces another pending lawsuit from SAS, related to the finished recorded version of Let’s Get It On, which Pullman hopes will reach a jury trial.
Sheeran’s earlier victory, in a case that did reach a trial, was brought by Townsend’s heirs who also share in the copyright to Let’s Get It On. Again, the chord progression was not found to be unique enough to warrant a copyright claim, and Sheeran prevailed.
During the trial, he had threatened to quit music if he lost the case, saying: “I find it really insulting to devote my whole life to being a performer and a songwriter and have someone diminish it.” After winning, he said: “I am obviously very happy with the outcome of the case and it looks like I am not having to retire from my day job after all. But at the same time I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all.”
Sheeran is currently top of the UK album chart with his new album –, or Subtract, which was the fastest-selling album of the year so far.
