Ed Sheeran wins copyright lawsuit

Sort of late news by now, but pop star Ed Sheeran has emerged victorious in his legal battle over copyright infringement for his song, “Thinking Out Loud” from the estate of Ed Townsend. Townsend was one of the writers on “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye, and a federal judge in New York ruled that Sheeran did not copy any elements related to his own music.

When the suit was initially filed in 2016, Townsend’s estate claimed that Sheeran’s song copied the “harmonic progressions” as well as the “melodic and rhythmic elements” from “one of the most well-known and instantly recognizable songs in R&B history,” even going as far to say that “the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic compositions in Thinking are not the product of independent creation… [they] are substantially and/or strikingly similar to the drum composition from Let’s.”

This follows a separate legal victory in High Court for Sheeran related to copyright issues for another massive hit, “Shape Of You,” which was resolved in April 2022.

Both trials, whether people knew or not, were massive in the precedents that could have been set for future legal proceedings when it comes to potential intellectual property infringement. Pop music has historically been an “easy” composition and I mean that, it doesn’t take a lot of pieces to make a good pop song, because people use the same pieces, and you can’t copyright melodies, chord progressions, vocal tones, etc. They’ve been around since instruments were created, and I don’t think that a single person or a single song can re-write the history of music composition and the rights people have to them.

Not even Ed Townsend and “Let’s Get It On.”

Sources

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/ed-sheeran-wins-marvin-gaye-copyright-infringement-lawsuit/

https://www.musicweek.com/publishing/read/ed-sheeran-wins-thinking-out-loud-copyright-lawsuit-as-new-album-drops/087847

https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/ed-sheeran-speaks-out-thinking-out-loud-case-1235322327/

https://www.musicweek.com/publishing/read/ed-sheeran-s-legal-team-on-what-the-superstar-s-high-court-copyright-victory-means-for-songwriters/085676

https://www.musicweek.com/publishing/read/ed-sheeran-reacts-to-shape-of-you-copyright-trial-victory-after-painful-baseless-accusations/085575