Ed Sheeran. COURTESY PHOTO
Singer/song writer Ed Sheeran has serenaded us ever since he came onto the music scene and is the reason as to why some people are in love today but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t make mistakes.
The Perfect hit maker is being sued over copyright infringement for the third time since 2016. According to Variety, he’s being sued for $100 million in damages for allegedly ripping off “Let’s Get It On” by the late Marvin Gaye.
The suit accuses him and co-writer Amy Wadge of having “copied and exploited” the Gaye song for Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud,” including “the melody, rhythms, harmonies, drums, bass line, backing chorus, tempo, syncopation, and looping.”
Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud
However, Marvin Gaye’s family isn’t even involved. This suit is coming from an investment banker named David Pullman (the guy behind Bowie Bonds, an investment scheme to make money off of David Bowie albums) and a company called Structured Asset Sales, which now controls a third of the rights to “Let’s Get It On.” This isn’t like the “Blurred Lines” case, where the family believed that Thicke and Williams had ripped them off, it’s a guy who is trying to make sure his investment is worth as much money as possible.
“Let’s Get It On” by the late Marvin Gaye
Thinking Out Loud, which reached No 1 in November 2014, is not the only Sheeran work that has faced legal action over alleged similarities to other songs.
In January this year two songwriters, Sean Carey and Beau Golden, filed a lawsuit accusing the singer of stealing the melody from their song When I Found You, sung by Australian artist Jasmin Rae, and using it for The Rest of Our Life, which Sheeran wrote for the country artists Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. Sheeran responded with court documents denying any similarity between the two songs.
In June 2016 two more musicians, Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard, claimed Sheeran’s 2014 single Photograph had the same musical composition as their song Amazing, performed and released by the X Factor winner Matt Cardle in 2012. Sheeran settled the claim, and the terms of the deal were not disclosed. Harrington and Leonard were represented by the lawyer Richard Busch, who successfully sued Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for copyright infringement over their single Blurred Lines in 2015, winning a $7.4m (£5.1m) settlement.
