Ed Sheeran arrives in New York City for the alleged copyright infringement trial on April 25, 2023.
Photo: Getty Images, John Lamparski. All rights reserved.
Ed Sheeran himself spoke in court on Tuesday (April 25) about the plagiarism process that has been ongoing since Monday. Ed Townsend’s heirs want to prove that Sheerans “Thinking Out Loud” from the Marvin Gaye track “Let’s Get It On” is copied. In the original indictment, the plaintiffs said they recognized “striking similarities” and “obvious common elements” between the songs.
The plaintiffs’ legal team now referred to a mash-up of the two songs that Sheeran presented live on stage in Zurich in 2014. This is the final proof of copyright infringement. One of the lawyers even described the performance as a “smoking gun”, i.e. as clear evidence. Ed Sheeran firmly denied this allegation. “If I had done what you accuse me of, I would be quite an idiot to stand on stage in front of 20,000 people and do it,” said the 32-year-old about the accusation that he revealed himself on the Zurich stage as a song -Thief. The fact that pop songs share certain chord sequences is not unusual. He’s constantly mixing songs with similar elements, he continued. “You can go from Let It Be to No Woman No Cry.”
Sheeran first heard “Let’s Get It On” in the movie Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999). The inspiration for “Thinking Out Loud” was something completely different: the love of his grandparents. He never spoke to his co-songwriter Amy Wadge about the Marvin Gaye song, he said People magazine according to.