Ed Sheeran did not copy Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On in his own hit song Thinking Out Loud, a court has ruled.
The jury concluded on Thursday Sheeran did not steal key components of the 1970s hit after a two-week trial in New York. During the civil trial, the 32-year-old sang and performed Thinking Out Loud on the guitar for jurors as part of his defence.
Sheeran was sued by the heirs of songwriter Ed Townsend - who co-wrote the song with Marvin Gaye - as they claimed the track had so many similarities to Let's Get It On that it violated the song's copyright protection.
They claimed Sheeran’s 2014 song, written with collaborator Amy Wadge, bore “striking similarities” and “overt common elements” to Let’s Get It On. The A-Team singer told jurors in New York that if he was found guilty he would give up his music career.
"If that happens, I'm done, I'm stopping," he said when asked about the toll the trial at Manhattan federal court was taking on him.
Sheeran's lawyer, Ilene Farkas, told the jurors that similarities in the chord progressions and rhythms of the two songs were "the letters of the alphabet of music".
"These are basic musical building blocks that songwriters now and forever must be free to use, or all of us who love music will be poorer for it," she said.
Thinking Out Loud came out in 2014, and won the Grammy for song of the year. Sheeran's lawyers argued that shared versions of a similar and unprotectable chord progression freely available to all songwriters.
Townsend, who also wrote the 1958 R&B doo-wop hit "For Your Love", was a singer, songwriter, and lawyer who died in 2003.
Kathryn Townsend Griffin, his daughter, testified during the trial that she thought Sheeran was "a great artist with a great future". She said she hoped the lawsuit would not result in a trial, "but I have to protect my father's legacy".
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