Ed Sheeran has won a courtroom victory after it was ruled his song Thinking Out Loud did not infringe on the copyright of Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On.
English pop star Sheeran first faced plagiarism accusations in 2016 when the family of Let's Get It On co-writer Ed Townsend sued. That case was dismissed the following year, but in 2018 Structured Asset Sales – a company which owns part of the royalties for Let's Get It On – claimed Sheeran stole the chord progression and rhythm for Marvin Gaye's hit.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has now ruled that Sheeran's 2014 hit did not infringe on the copyright.
The court said that the two songs share only "fundamental musical building blocks" and added that that to rule in Structured Asset Sales' favour would be detrimental to the creativity of artists everywhere.
The judges' ruling continued: "The four-chord progression at issue – ubiquitous in pop music – even coupled with a syncopated harmonic rhythm, is too well-explored to meet the originality threshold that copyright law demands. Overprotecting such basic elements would threaten to stifle creativity and undermine the purpose of copyright law."
It's not the first time a contemporary pop star has faced a lawsuit over similarities between one of their songs and a rock classic.
In 2015, Tom Petty settled out of court with Sam Smith after similarities were pointed out between Smith’s hit single Stay With Me and Petty’s 1989 track I Won’t Back Down.
One of the more bizarre music plagiarism cases came in 1982 when Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty was sued for plagiarising himself.
