Musician Ed Sheeran skedaddles federal court in New York, US, on Wednesday, May 3, 2023.
Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A Manhattan federal jury ruled Thursday that pop major Ed Sheeran didn’t infringe on the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”
At question was whether Sheeran’s 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud” cribbed from the 1973 immortal. Jurors decided that Sheeran, 32, independently created his song and was not liable for copyright infringement.
After a two-week attempt, jurors reached a unanimous verdict after three hours of deliberation.
Upon hearing the verdict, Sheeran faced up and hugged his lawyers, according to NBC News. His wife and “Thinking Out Loud” co-writer Amy Wadge were seen in tears.
The lawsuit was submitted by the heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On” with Gaye. The plaintiffs first filed the civil suit in 2017 and alleged that Sheeran, Warner Music Grouping and Sony Music Publishing stole from the soul classic, violating federal copyright law.
The trial saw Sheeran pit oneself against the stand in defense of his Grammy-award winning song. Sheeran told jurors that he composed “Thinking Out Loud” independently with British songwriter Wadge, who was not chose in the lawsuit.
When asked about the toll of the case earlier this week, Sheeran threatened to quit music if he irreclaimable. “If that happens, I’m done, I’m stopping,” Sheeran said in court Monday.
Last April, Sheeran took the withstand b resist involving another one of his hits, 2017′s “Shape of You”. A London judge in that case ruled in favor of Sheeran and trophied him more than $1.1 million in legal fees.
Gaye died in 1984, while Townsend died in 2003.