Did one of the kings of pop, the British Ed Sheeran, plagiarize Marvin Gaye’s famous song, Let’s get it on, for his planetary hit Thinking out loud? A jury, whose selection began on Monday April 24 in a federal court in New York, will have to decide. In April 2022, the 32-year-old singer and songwriter won a similar but separate legal battle when the High Court in London dismissed two musicians accusing him of having copied one of their works, for his mega hit Shape of you .
This time, the plaintiffs are the heirs of Ed Townsend, an American musician and producer who co-wrote Let’s get it on with Marvin Gaye. Released in 1973, this soul classic has remained famous for its guitar notes and sultry vocals from the Prince of Motown. In their copyright claim, Townsend’s heirs, including his daughter, claim there are “striking similarities” to Thinking Out Loud, released in 2014.
They want proof that the group Boyz 2 Men had mixed the two songs on stage. Ed Sheeran himself had chained the very different voice lines of the two hits in concert, on the same guitar harmonies, a sequence still visible on the internet. A “proof” disputed by the singer’s lawyers, for whom “he There are dozens if not hundreds of songs before and after ‘Let’s get it on’ that use the same or similar chord progression. Ed Sheeran’s hit ranked 2nd on the Billboard Hot 100, the American reference ranking and won the Grammy Award for best song of the year in 2016.
The complaint, filed in 2016, was first dismissed on a procedural issue, then filed again in 2017, also against Sony. Ed Sheeran had come in person to defend his song Shape of you in the previous trial in London, a case he considered emblematic of abusive practices that undermine creation. The star could also be present during the trial in New York, whose proceedings are due to begin Tuesday once the selection of the jury is completed on Monday, according to a lawyer.
The London judge agreed with Ed Sheeran, finding that he had not copied, even “unconsciously”, part of the melody of the song Oh why (2015) by Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue. The judge had noted “obvious similarities” between the two songs, with a melody resulting in particular from the minor pentatonic scale like “countless songs from pop, rock, folk and blues”, but also “significant differences”.