Ed Sheeran Copyright Trial Over Marvin Gaye Similarities Resumes

Ed Sheeran got to the US federal court Tuesday for a trial over whether the British pop star plagiarised American music icon Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” in his own 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud.”

Industry members are closely following the copyright lawsuit as it could set a precedent for protections on songwriters’ creations and open the door to legal challenges elsewhere.

It’s the second trial in a year for Sheeran, who successfully testified at a London court last April in a case centred around his song “Shape Of You,” saying that lawsuit was emblematic of copyright litigation going too far. The judge ruled in his favour.

He arrived Tuesday at the courthouse in Manhattan silently and with his head lowered, wading past the throng of cameras and journalists stationed outside.

At issue in the New York case are alleged “striking similarities and overt common elements” between Gaye and Sheeran’s songs.

During the trial, Sheeran told the court “Yes, Amy Wadge and I wrote the song ‘Thinking Out Loud.”’

The plaintiffs are the heirs of Ed Townsend, a musician and producer who co-wrote Gaye’s 1973 soul classic, who was also in court Tuesday.

“I am here for justice, protecting my father’s intellectual properties,” Townsend’s daughter Kathryn Townsend Griffin said outside the courthouse.

“As Marvin Gaye would say, ‘Let’s get it on,’” said Ben Crump, lawyer for the plaintiffs.