Ed Sheeran has emerged victorious in an appeal case involving his 2014 song "Thinking Out Loud," with the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling that it did not infringe the copyright of "Let's Get It On" ” by Marvin Gaye.
Sheeran was first accused of music plagiarism in 2016 by the family of Let's Get It On co-writer Ed Townsend. That lawsuit was dismissed in 2017, but was followed in 2018 by another lawsuit filed by Structured Asset Sales, a company that owns a portion of the proceeds of the 1973 song, alleging that Sheeran copied Gaye's chord progression.
On Friday, the court ruled that the two songs share only "basic musical building blocks," and in the ruling, the judges stated that the four-chord progression and syncopated rhythm present in Sheeran's song are elements commonly used in pop music and therefore , cannot meet the originality requirements of copyright law.