NEW YORK – British singer Ed Sheeran did not steal key components from Marvin Gaye’s classic 1970s song “Let’s Get It On” to create his hit “Thinking Out Loud,” a jury said on Thursday with a court verdict prompting Sheeran to later to joke about it, his threat to quit music doesn’t have to come true.
The emotions of an epic copyright battle spanning most of the last decade erupted when the seven-person jury announced their verdict after more than two hours of deliberation.
Sheeran, 32, briefly put his face in his hands in relief before standing to hug his attorney, Ilene Farkas. As the jurors left the courtroom ahead of him, Sheeran smiled, nodded to several of them, and formed the words, “Thank you.” He later posed for a hallway photo with a juror who stayed behind.
He also reached out to plaintiff Kathryn Townsend Griffin, daughter of Ed Townsend, who co-created and testified with Gaye on the 1973 soul classic. They talked for about 10 minutes, hugged and smiled and eventually clasped their hands together.
Sheeran later addressed reporters outside the courthouse, repeating his claim made during the trial that he would consider quitting songwriting if he lost the case.
“Obviously I’m very pleased with the outcome of this case and it looks like I won’t have to retire from my full-time job after all. But at the same time, I’m incredibly frustrated that such baseless claims are even allowed to go to court,” the singer said, reading from a prepared statement.
He also said he missed his grandmother’s funeral in Ireland because of the trial and that he “will never get that time back”.
At the courthouse after the verdict, Griffin said she was relieved.
“I’m just glad it’s over,” she said of the process. “We can be friends.”
She said she was pleased Sheeran approached her.
“It showed me who he was,” Griffin said.
She said her copyright lawsuit isn’t personal, but that she wants to keep a promise to her father to protect his intellectual property.
One juror, Sophia Neis, later told reporters that there was no immediate consensus when deliberations began.
“Everyone had opinions that went in. Both sides had advocates,” said Neis, 23. “There was a lot of back and forth.”
The ruling ended a two-week trial that included a courtroom appearance by Sheeran when the singer, at times angrily, insisted the trial was a threat to all musicians making their own music.
Sheeran sat with his legal team throughout the trial, defending himself against a lawsuit brought by Townsend’s heirs, who said “Thinking Out Loud” shared so many similarities with “Let’s Get It On” that it violated the song’s copyright protections.
It wasn’t the first court victory for a singer whose musical style draws on classic soul, pop and R&B, making him the target of copyright lawsuits. A year ago, Sheeran won a UK copyright battle over his 2017 hit “Shape of You,” then condemned what he described as a “culture” of unfounded lawsuits forcing artists wanting to avoid the costs of a lawsuit to settle.
Outside of court, Sheeran said he didn’t want to be taken advantage of.
“I’m just a guy with a guitar who loves to write music for people to enjoy,” he said.
Early in the trial, attorney Ben Crump told the jury on behalf of the Townsend heirs that Sheeran himself sometimes performed the two songs together. The jury saw video from a concert in Switzerland of Sheeran transitioning between “Let’s Get It On” and “Thinking Out Loud” on stage. Crump said it was proof Sheeran stole the famous tune.
In her closing arguments on Wednesday, Farkas said Crump’s “smoking gun is firing blanks.”
She said the only common elements between the two songs are “the basics of every songwriter’s tool kit” and “the framework upon which all songwriting is built.”
“They didn’t copy it. Unaware. Not unconscious. Not at all,” Farkas said.
As Sheeran testified for the defense for two days, he repeatedly picked up a guitar that was lying behind him on the witness stand to demonstrate how he seamlessly creates “mashups” of two or three songs during concerts to “smash it” for his size. spice it up a bit.” crowds.
The English pop star’s cheerful demeanor, which he displayed when questioned by his lawyer, all but disappeared under cross-examination.
“When you write songs, someone comes after you,” Sheeran testified, saying the case is being closely watched by others in the industry.
He insisted that he and the song’s co-writer – Amy Wadge – stole nothing from “Let’s Get It On”.
Townsend’s heirs said in their lawsuit that “Thinking Out Loud” had “striking similarities” and “obvious common elements” that made it apparent that it copied “Let’s Get It On,” a song used in numerous films and commercials and has been shown hundreds of millions of streams, spins and radio plays over the past half century.
Sheeran’s song, which came out in 2014, was a hit and won a Grammy for Song of the Year.
Sheeran’s label Atlantic Records and Sony/ATV Music Publishing were also named as defendants in the Thinking Out Loud lawsuit, but Sheeran was at the center of the lawsuit.
Wadge, who was not a defendant, testified on his behalf and hugged Sheeran after the verdict.
Gaye was shot dead by his father in 1984 at the age of 44 while trying to intervene in an argument between his parents. He had been a Motown superstar since the 1960s, although his songs released in the 1970s made him a musical giant of the entire generation.
Townsend, who also wrote the 1958 R&B doo-wop hit “For Your Love,” was a singer, songwriter, and lawyer who died in 2003. Griffin, his daughter, testified at the trial that she thought of Sheeran as “a great artist with a great future.”
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Associated Press writer Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Find more AP stories about Ed Sheeran: https://apnews.com/hub/ed-sheeran
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