How Copyright Claims Against Ed Sheeran Are Hurting The Music Industry | Music News

The 32-year-old is being sued by heirs of songwriter Ed Townsend, Gaye’s co-writer on the 1973 song. Although the lawsuit was originally filed in 2017, it has finally now made it to a stage of trial that is expected to last up to two weeks in the Manhattan federal courtroom of 95-year-old Judge Louis L. Stanton, the AP has reported. Sheeran is defending the claim that his 2014 single Thinking Out Loud infringes on the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s 1973 hit Let’s Get It OnThe lawsuit is being brought by the heirs of Gaye’s co-writer on Let’s Get It On, Ed Townsend, and alleges that Sheeran and co-writer Amy Wadge copied an ascending four-chord sequence, and its rhythm. Townsend’s heirs are seeking a share of profits from Thinking Out Loud, saying that the syncopated chord progression was copied from Let’s Get It On. As of now, the jury is supposed to evaluate whether Sheeran copied Gaye’s song’s building blocks, which are documented on the sheet music on a file with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, according to the Associated Press. Thus, it is being argued that the presence of “overt common elements” between the two songs is a violation of copyright. Copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship such as photographs, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programs, books, poems, movies, architectural works, and more, as soon as they take on a tangible form of expression. Thinking Out Loud went to No 1 in the UK and No 2 in the US, and won a Grammy award for song of the year in 2016. Lawyers for Townsend earlier this week showed a video of Sheeran transitioning seamlessly between Thinking Out Loud and Let’s Get it On, in a live performance they said amounted to a confession that he had ripped off the song. In court, Sheeran replied: “Most pop songs can fit over most pop songs … if I had done what you’re accusing me of doing, I’d be a quite an idiot to stand on a stage in front of 20,000 people and do that.”