A court ruled that Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' did not copy Marvin Gaye's classic 'Let's Get It On.' The Grammy award-winning artist said he is 'unbelievably frustrated' by the 'baseless claims' which have now been thrown out.
He said artists must be able to engage 'independently in creation' without worrying it will be 'wrongly called into question.'
The 32-year-old crooner has spent the past two weeks in Manhattan Federal Court fighting a claim that his 2014 track, Thinking Out Loud, had been lifted from Marvin Gaye's iconic record, Let's Get It On.
The claim was made against Sheeran and his record label Atlantic Records by Kathryn Townsend Griffin, an heir to the estate of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote Let's Get It On with Gaye back in 1973.
Speaking outside the courthouse after the verdict was served, Sheeran touched upon his grandmother's death and declared he would "never get back time back".
Ms Townsend Griffin's representatives argued during the court case that Sheeran had knowingly lifted elements of Let's Get It On – with their "smoking gun" being a recording of the crooner performing a mash-up of both tracks while on tour.
However, Sheeran maintained this it was typical of him to mash up tracks as it was "easy to weave songs together" – having previously used Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You and Van Morrison's Crazy Love in the same manner. Today, a judge declared that Sheeran "neither intentionally nor unintentionally" copied the famous 70s ballad.
This is the second major infringement lawsuit that Sheeran has won against his music.
In April 2022, he was accused in court of removing elements of his song Shape Of You from Samchokri's 2015 track Oh Why.
