When British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran entered the Manhattan Federal Court with an acoustic guitar for his copyright infringement case trial and then sang his Grammy-winning song. "Thinking Out Loud" in front of the courtroom's crowded audience, it was an unusual sight.

The British musician was in New York for a trial related to a copyright infringement claim brought by the family of Ed Townsend, the late co-writer of Marvin Gaye's soul anthem "Let's Get it On," against him for his song "Thinking Out Loud." When Sheeran came to appear as the first witness for the defence during the trial, he played the chord sequence of "Thinking Out Loud" in front of the jurors.[1]

The pop artist is accused of stealing the beat of the late superstar Marvin Gaye's 1973 soul song "Let's Get it On" in the ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit against him. Kathryn Townsend Gryphon, whose late father, Ed Townsend, co-wrote the song "Let's Get it On," filed the complaint. It claims that Sheeran copied Gaye's song's fundamental musical

The plaintiffs also called musicologist Alexander Stewart as an expert witness, who claimed that one of Sheeran's four chords in the opening of "Thinking Out Loud" was a minor chord that also appears in the same position of the chord progression throughout "Let's Get It On."

Issue:

• The question in this case is whether Ed Sheeran's 2014 song "Thinking Out Loud" violated the copyright of Ed Townsend, the late co-writer of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On" soul hit.
• The plaintiffs contend that Sheeran plagiarised Gaye's song's basic musical structure, even if not its exact lyrics or mood.

Rule
Copyright is a sort of intellectual property that safeguards original works of authorship as soon as they assume a tangible form of expression, including images, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programmes, novels, poetry, movies, architectural works, and more. When someone makes use of or duplicates an original work without the owner's consent, this is known as copyright infringement. According to the U.S. Copyright Act, the plaintiff must show that the defendant had access to the original work and that the two works are substantially similar in order to establish copyright infringement.

Analysis
The plaintiffs in this lawsuit contend that Sheeran's song "Thinking Out Loud" violated the copyright of Gaye's song "Let's Get it On" since the former purportedly stole the latter's basic musical composition. Alexander Stewart, a musicologist who was called as an expert witness by the plaintiffs, stated that one of Sheeran's four chords in the start of "Thinking Out Loud" was a minor chord that also appears in the same place of the chord progression throughout the rest of "Let's Get It On." The plaintiffs also presented a clip from one of Sheeran's live performances in which he could be seen switching back and forth between his song and Gaye's in a medley-like fashion.

Sheeran, however, countered that most pop songs can "fit over most pop songs" and that he frequently performs such medleys, which he claimed were made feasible "by the limited harmonic palette of mainstream pop music."

He used his guitar to show how the major chord he played in his song differed from the minor one suggested by the plaintiff's musicologist. Sheeran's lawyers said that the song's symmetrical structure alludes to the roots of popular music and that the two songs contain variations of a chord sequence that is comparable and unprotectable and was publicly accessible to all songwriters. The defence included a guitar textbook as supporting documentation to demonstrate that any musician may create a tune using a common sequence.

After considering the evidence presented by both sides, the court ruled in favor of Sheeran, finding that the similarities between the two songs were not substantial enough to constitute copyright infringement. The court found that the similarities between the two songs were limited to a common chord progression that is not protectable by copyright and that Sheeran did not copy protectable elements of Gaye's song.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the court found that Sheeran did not infringe on the copyright of Gaye's song. The court found that the similarities between the two songs were limited to a common chord progression that is not protectable by copyright and that Sheeran did not copy protectable elements of Gaye's song. This case highlights the difficulty of establishing copyright infringement in cases involving musical compositions, where similarities between two songs may be limited to a common chord progression that is widely used in popular music.

End-Notes:

1. https://americansongwriter.com/ed-sheeran-performs-thinking-out-loud-during-marvin-gaye-copyright-trial/