British artist Ed Sheeran wins plagiarism case in New York

Ed Sheeran can shout (or sing) victory. The British musician won, Thursday, May 4, his civil lawsuit in New York (United States), where he was prosecuted for plagiarism of a song by the American Marvin Gaye. The jury in Manhattan federal court, which had been trying for ten days in the emblematic music copyright case, found that the 32-year-old singer had created his song “independently” and that his 2014 planetary hit, Thinking Out Loud was therefore not a partial copy of the famous Let’s Get It On of the prince of soul Marvin Gaye, published in 1973.

Ed Sheeran has attended the hearings since April 24 defending himself from having plagiarized the title of Marvin Gaye and even sang, accompanying himself on the guitar in court, to defend himself from any plagiarism.

At the statement of the decision, the singer stood up, thanked the jury and gave the hug to his team, according to an AFP journalist in the courtroom. He then said to himself “thrilled” of his victory against a complaint “unfounded”. The consequences of the outcome of this trial were important: according to certain musicologists and jurists, a verdict against the singer could have “chill” artists in musical creation.

A second lawsuit won in a year for Ed Sheeran

The plaintiffs were heirs of Ed Townsend, an American musician and producer who co-wrote the track Let’s Get It On with Marvin Gaye, an African-American soul legend. The civil party pointed “striking similarities and clear commonalities” between the two songs.

For Ed Sheeran, this is the second lawsuit won in a year. He had also won a separate legal battle in April 2022 before the High Court in London, which had dismissed two musicians accusing him of having copied one of their works for another of his hits, Shape Of You.