Ed Sheeran Booked For Allegedly Ripping Off Marvin Gaye’s Classic Song Let’s Get It On
BBC revealed yesterday that District Judge Louis Stanton has rejected Ed Sheeran’s plea for the case dismissal. Stanton has apparently found tangible similarities between the tracks by both Ed Sheeran and Marvin Gaye. Now it is for the US jury to decide. There are “substantial similarities between several of the two works’ musical elements”. And these might eventually land the singer and songwriter in some dire consequences.
The judge has drawn out several noticeable similarities. But Sheeran insists that he has not copied ‘Thinking Out Loud’ from ‘Let’s Get It On’. Distributors of the classic 1973 hit song, Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Atlantic Records, are both supporting Townsend’s heirs in the legal battle.
Stanton is also currently overseeing another $100 million lawsuit relating to the same song. Company Structured Asset Sales, which owns part of the copyright in Gaye’s song, has launched this complaint.
The Similarities Between The Two Songs
The judge field that the bass lines and percussion of the two songs are nearly congruent. He also quoted that said listeners might consider the songs to have a like “aesthetic appeal”. He said there was disagreement over whether the harmonic and rhythmic composition of Gaye’s song was too common to merit copyright protection.
Multiple Plagiarism Controversies For Ed Sheeran
Sheeran has previously been involved in infringement issues too. In 2017 Sheeran settled a $20m copyright infringement claim against him in the US, over his hit song Photograph. Also in 2017, Ed Sheeran had to give the team behind TLC’s 1999 single No Scrubs writing credits on Shape of You. It came after critics and fans made comparisons between elements of the songs. These controversies are not something unusual in the entertainment industry either. A few days ago, Childish Gambino was under fire for plagiarism
