Must stand his ground in court: Ed Sheeran.
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In 2017, Marvin Gaye’s co-author’s heirs filed a lawsuit against Ed Sheeran. The reason: They accused the 32-year-old singer of having stolen parts of his song “Thinking Out Loud” from Gaye’s hit “Let’s Get It On”. The Erb:innen claimed to be able to identify “striking similarities” and “obvious common elements” between the songs. On Monday (April 24, 2023), six years later, the trial begins – and Ed Sheeran is scheduled to testify in court on the first day.
In the copyright litigation, the jury is to focus solely on the “raw elements of melody, harmony and rhythm” of the composition of “Let’s Get It On,” “as documented on the sheet music filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have been submitted”, according to a report by the Daily Mail. Ed Sheeran’s attorneys said in a statement that the songs’ “undeniable structural symmetry only points to the basics of popular music.” They are quoted in the court filing as saying: “The two songs share versions of a similar and non-protectable chord progression that was freely available to all songwriters.”
Marvin Gaye’s heirs are not involved in this copyright lawsuit, although they were recently involved in a similar case: the lawsuit against Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and TI over the similarity of their hit song “Blurred Lines” (2013) to Gaye’s song “Got to Give it Up” was successful. Ed Sheeran’s song “Thinking Out Loud” was released in 2014 and won a Grammy for Song of the Year. “Let’s Get It On” was released in 1973 and reached number one on the US charts in September of that year.