Ed Sheeran Wins Copyright Trial Over 'Thinking Out Loud' and Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On'

etonline.com:

Ed Sheeran's copyright trial. On Thursday, a New York City jury found that the 32-year-old singer did not copy Marvin Gaye's 1973 hit, «Let's Get It On,» on his 2014 song, «Thinking Out Loud.»«Ed seemed very pleased with the verdict and gave everyone on his legal team a big hug,» an eyewitness at the courthouse tells ET. «After he hugged his team, he then chatted with Kathy Townsend and hugged her as well.»After the verdict was reached, Sheeran publicly released a statement about his win and the case as a whole.«I am obviously very happy with the outcome of the case, and it looks like I'm not going to have to retire from my day job after all — but, at the same time, I am unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all,» Sheeran's statement read. «We have spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords which are also different and used by songwriters every day, all over the world.

These chords are common building blocks which were used to create music long before 'Let's Get It On' was written and will be used to make music long after we are all gone.

They are a songwriter's 'alphabet', our tool kit and should be there for us all to use. No-one owns them, or the way they are played, in the same way, nobody owns the color blue.»«Unfortunately, unfounded claims like this one are being fueled by individuals who are offered as experts in musical analysis,» the statement continued. «In this instance, the other side's musicologist left out words and notes, presented simple (and different) pitches as melody, creating misleading comparisons and disinformation to find supposed similarities where none exist.