Last Friday, 5th May, Ed Sheeran emerged the winner in a hotly contested copyright battle over his 2014 song ‘Thinking Out Loud’. Sheeran was being sued by the heirs of songwriter Ed Townsend, who claimed that ‘Thinking Out Loud’ was “strikingly similar” to Marvin Gaye’s 1973 track ‘Let’s Get It On’, which Townsend co-wrote.
Speaking outside the courtroom directly after the verdict, Sheeran was relieved but clearly livid. “I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court,” Sheeran said.
Marvin Gaye: ‘Let’s Get It On’
In a new interview with CBS News – which was filmed before the outcome of the trial – Sheeran spoke further about the case.
“I just think it comes with the territory,” Sheeran told CBS, before waving away someone in his team who seemed to motion off-camera for him to stop talking. “There’s like four chords that get used in pop songs. You just think, mathematically, the likelihood of this song having the same chords as this song, there are multiple, multiple songs – it’s all the same four chords.”
When someone off camera seemingly gestures at him again, Sheeran responds, “I’m a musician I can fucking speak about this”.
“You are going to get this with every single pop song from now on, unless it just stops,” Sheeran says. “But I don’t think it does because it’s a big money business to take things to court. You can only get caught out if you’ve done something wrong – and I have not done something wrong. I used four chords that are very common chords to use.”
“It just riles me up man,” finishes Sheeran, after being asked whether he was okay.
Sheeran’s latest album – (Subtract) arrived last Friday, and a four-part Disney+ documentary about the making of the album, Ed Sheeran: The Sum Of It All, was also released last week.
Further Reading
Ed Sheeran Wins Copyright Case Over ‘Thinking Out Loud’
Ed Sheeran Announces Four-Part Disney+ Docu-Series ‘The Sum of It All’
Ed Sheeran Testifies in ‘Thinking Out Loud’ Plagiarism Trial
