Ed Sheeran came out swinging in his statement after a New York court found in his favour last week over a claim that his 2014 song Thinking Out Loud infringed copyright in Marvin Gaye’s hit Let’s Get It On. He called suits like the one brought by the estate of Gaye’s co-writer Ed Townshend “baseless” and pointed to the wider ramifications of the verdict:
I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake … I want to thank the jury for making a decision that will help to protect the creative process of songwriters here in the United States and around the world … These claims need to be stopped so that the creative process can carry on, and we can all just go back to making music.
It wasn’t his first time facing such charges, copyright suits being a common professional hazard. As the old industry maxim states, where there’s a hit, there’s a writ. So why did Sheeran allude to benefits for songwriters at large from this verdict?
