Earlier this month, Ed Sheeran scored a major win when he was found not liable in a lawsuit that alleged plagiarism of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” on his “Thinking Out Loud.” Now, less than two weeks later, another similar lawsuit was just resolved in Sheeran’s favor.
Billboard reports that last September, US District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that Sheeran would need to face a jury in a lawsuit filed by Structured Asset Sales, which owns a partial stake in the Gaye song. Now, though, Stanton reversed that decision and ruled that the case is dismissed without Sheeran facing a trial.
He wrote, “It is an unassailable reality that the chord progression and harmonic rhythm in ‘Let’s Get It On’ are so commonplace, in isolation and in combination, that to protect their combination would give ‘Let’s Get It On’ an impermissible monopoly over a basic musical building block.”
Stanton also said, “Multiple songwriters have combined the two commonplace elements in the same manner for years. If their combination were protected and not freely available to songwriters, the goal of copyright law […] would be thwarted. […] To prevent manifest injustice, defendants’ motion for reconsideration is granted. The Clerk of the Court is directed to close the case.”
Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. .
