Ed Sheeran is now on the receiving end of a second copyright infringement lawsuit. A new case, brought by the songwriter Ed Townsend, contends that Sheeran “copied the ‘heart’” of Marvin Gaye’s 1973 hit ‘Let’s Get It On’ for his smash hit ‘Thinking Out Loud’.
The family of Townsend, who composed and co-wrote the lyrics to Gaye’s hit, filed the lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of New York on Wednesday (August 10th). He has requested that the case is assessed at a jury trial, and claims that the harmonic, melodic and rhythmical elements distinctive to ‘Let’s Get It On’ formed the central structure of Sheeran’s 2014 hit.
Ed Sheeran is the subject of another copyright lawsuit, this time over ‘Thinking Out Loud’
Reuters reported that the lawsuit states: “The defendants copied the ‘heart’ of ‘Let’s Get It On’ and repeated it continuously throughout ‘Thinking Out Loud’. The melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic compositions of ‘Thinking Out Loud’ are substantially and/or strikingly similar to the drum composition of ‘Let’s Get It On.’”
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Sheeran’s smash hit single, included on his 2014 multi-million selling second album X, became the first ever track to spend an entire year on the UK Top 40 singles chart, and the accompanying music video has been viewed more than one billion times on YouTube. It was not only his first solo chart-topper in Britain, but also in many countries around the world, and won Song of the Year at the 2016 Grammys.
Earlier this year, the 25 year old singer-songwriter was hit with a similar lawsuit concerning his song ‘Photograph’, which songwriters Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard claimed was a “note-for-note” copy of a song they had written for 2010’s ‘The X Factor’ winner Matt Cardle, called ‘Amazing’.
That suit was brought in part by attorney Richard Busch – the same lawyer who triumphed on behalf of Marvin Gaye’s family last year when Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ was found to have substantively mimicked the ‘feel’ of his hit ‘Got To Give It Up’.
Sheeran’s representatives have not commented publicly on either of the two lawsuits, as of the time of writing.
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