Thinking out loud copyright dispute goes to Ed Sheeran's Favor
One of the things that Music Artists face is copyright, defending it is indeed painful especially if you did not copy it at all. One of those artists facing it right now is Ed Sheeran with his song “Thinking out loud”.
It was determined that Ed Sheeran's song "Thinking Out Loud" did not violate the copyright of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" Sheeran is pleased with the result but angry that bogus accusations like these are permitted to proceed to court.
“But at the same time I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all,” he said. Sheeran said eight years were spent talking about two songs with “dramatically” different lyrics melodies “and four chords which are also different and used by songwriters everyday all over the world.”
Although Sheeran's song "Thinking Out Loud" won the 2016 Grammy for song of the year, Ed Townsend's family claimed he plagiarized the 1973 hit. The case was being closely watched because it could make songwriters' legal situation more challenging.
Sheeran attempted to refute the testimony of the plaintiff's expert witness by singing the first line of "Thinking Out Loud" for the jury. He claimed that the song was written by him and Amy Wadge in a matter of hours.
The incident was described as a "smoking gun" by Ben Crump, an attorney for the family of the co-writer of Gaye's 1973 hit song "Let's Get It On." In the music industry, copyright lawsuits have increased in frequency. Because Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams used Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up" in their hit song "Blurred Lines," they were sued for $7.4 million in 2015.
Taylor Swift, Led Zeppelin, and Ed Sheeran have all prevailed in other recent copyright cases, with different results. After the jury's decision, Sheeran hugged Kathryn Townsend Griffin and expressed his concern about the recent uptick in music copyright cases.
“I’m glad that we could hug this thing out,” Griffin said after court. She added that Sheeran had invited her to one of his upcoming shows.