Ed Sheeran Wins Appeals Court Ruling In Marvin Gaye Copyright Case

On Friday (November 1), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Ed Sheeran’s No. 2 hit, “Thinking Out Loud,” did not infringe on the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” The court ruling found that the songs share only “fundamental musical building blocks,” while stating that “overprotecting such basic elements would threaten to stifle creativity and undermine the purpose of copyright law.” The case was originally filed by Structured Asset Sales, a company that owns a small stake in Gaye’s song, who argued that Sheeran’s song copied both the chord progression and rhythm used in “Let’s Get It On.” This new ruling comes a year after Sheeran was found not liable in a similar copyright infringement lawsuit by Ed Townsend’s estate, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On.” Sheeran said at the time he was “unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all. It’s simply wrong.” (Rolling Stone)