Fresh off his eight-year copyright infringement battle, Ed Sheeran—who prevailed in court last week in New York—is just “really glad it’s over.”
During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday, the singer reflected on the lawsuit, in which “Let’s Get It On” co-writer Ed Townsend’s heirs alleged that Sheeran ripped off the Marvin Gaye hit with his own song “Thinking Out Loud.” Sheeran stood by his claim in court that had he lost the suit, he would have quit music entirely.
The supposed smoking gun in attorney Benjamin Crump’s case against Sheeran was a 2014 concert where the British singer performed “Thinking Out Loud” and Gaye’s hit as a medley. Crump pointed out in court “how similar the defendant’s song is to ‘Let’s Get It On.’ The melody never changed, the chord progression never changed, the harmony never changed, and the harmonic compositions never changed.”
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Had he lost, Sheeran told Stern, it would have meant sitting down to write music and thinking, “I can’t use a C chord to a G chord because someone in the ’60s used a C cord to a G chord.” As far as Sheeran is concerned, such an outcome “just sucks the fun out of” songwriting.
To demonstrate how he won his case, Sheeran pulled out his guitar—just like he did in court—and played several songs that all rely on the same chord progression as the two songs in question. There was “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You,” “People Get Ready,” “You’re Still the One,” “Just Like a Woman,” and “My Girl.” The examples, Sheeran said, go on and on.
Still, the singer’s victory in court was never a sure thing. As Helen Holmes previously reported for The Daily Beast, the Gaye family’s victory in a 2015 lawsuit over similarities between Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” set a troubling precedent.
On Stern, Sheeran reiterated what he’d argued in court: “Yes, it’s a chord sequence that you hear on successful songs, but if you say that a song in 1973 owns this, then what about all the songs that came before?”
“No one’s saying that songs shouldn't be copyrighted,” he added, “but you just can’t copyright a chord sequence. You just can’t.” When asked if he’d received support from other artists, Sheeran confirmed he’d gotten warm remarks from “Elton” (presumably, Elton John), Jon Bon Jovi, and “Taylor” (probably Swift).
“This is my livelihood, and this is the thing that I’ve worked my entire life to do,” Sheeran told Stern. “To have someone disbelieve it and diminish it, and just say that you’ve stolen it, I really felt like I had to take a stand and go to it.”
At the same time, he added, “Either way you lose—because you spend God knows what to win the case, and then you don’t get that back. And if you lose the case, you lose. ... And then there’s also the stain on your reputation.”
