Musician Ed Sheeran arrives at federal court in New York on Tuesday. Photographer: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg 
Sheeran, dressed in a dark blue suit and flanked by lawyers, listened silently as Ben Crump, a lawyer for Gaye’s co-author, Ed Townsend, accused the pop star of lifting the melody, chord progression, harmonies and rhythm of his 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud” from the older song.
“This case is simply about giving credit where credit is due,” Crump told jurors in his opening statement in the copyright trial that kicked off Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
The trial is being closely watched by the music industry, which has seen judges and juries wrestle in recent years with how to draw the line between musical building blocks available to all and the complex combination of elements that go into a copyright-able song.
Heirs of Townsend, who died in 2003, are seeking unspecified damages from Sheeran, Atlantic Records, and Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
Sheeran claims “Thinking Out Loud” sprung from a discussion between him and his writing partner, Amy Wadge, about elderly relatives who lost spouses after decades together. Sheeran and Wadge, who’s not named in the suit, are both expected to testify in the trial.
“‘Thinking Out Loud’ is about finding everlasting, unconditional love,” Ilene Farkas, a lawyer for Sheeran, told the jury in her opening statement. The lyrics and melodies of the songs are “very different,” she said. And while both songs use a similar chord progression, so do many other popular songs, including some by Buddy Holly, the Beatles and the Beach Boys, Farkas said.
The song is a work of “independent creation,” not copying, she said. “Ed Sheeran and Amy Wadge have been wrongly accused here.”
But Crump told jurors that Sheeran’s live performance of a “mashup” of the two songs shows how similar they are. He called the mashup the “smoking gun” proving Sheeran ripped off “Let’s Get It On.”
Farkas countered that Sheeran has previously performed mashups of “Thinking Out Loud” with other songs.
The case is Griffin v. Sheeran, 17-cv-05221, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.