Ed Sheeran Defeats Second Marvin Gaye Lawsuit

A district judge has ruled in favor of English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran in a second Marvin Gaye copyright lawsuit. On Tuesday (May 16) in Manhattan, a follow-up case against Sheeran was dismissed involving Gaye’s 1973 song “Let’s Get It On,” and Sheeran’s Grammy-winning single “Thinking Out Loud.”

Structured Asset Sales, LLC, owned by CEO and investment banker David Pullman, owns a portion of Gaye’s song, which was co-written by Ed Townsend (in 2003, SAS acquired Townsend’s one-third of the copyright after his death). In the lawsuit, SAS alleged that “Thinking Out Loud” infringed upon the copyright of the “Let’s Get It On” sheet music, also alleging “the combination of the chord progression and the harmonic rhythm used in 'Thinking Out Loud' is substantially similar to that in 'Let’s Get It On.’”

SAS also claimed that Sheeran “experienced a sharp and sudden rise as an international music star in less than eighteen (18) months as a direct result of the commercial success of the release of “‘Thinking Out Loud.’”

In Sheeran’s court win earlier this month, New York Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed a case between the 32-year-old artist and Townsend’s heirs, saying that the “chord progression and harmonic rhythm in ‘Let’s Get It On’ are so commonplace.” Before the decision was made, Sheeran even claimed that he would retire from music if he didn’t win the copyright trial.

Sheeran still faces a second pending lawsuit from SAS surrounding the finished recorded version of “Let’s Get It On.” Sheeran’s sixth album, Subtract, was released on May 5 with a companion four-part docuseries titled The Sum of It All on Disney+.