Sheeran is accused of plagiarizing various parts of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get In On” for his song, which came out on the 2014 album x (pronounced “Multiply”). “Thinking Out Loud” went on to win a Grammy for Song of the Year. As reported by Billboard, on Sept. 29, Judge Louis Stanton decided not to throw the case out and allowed the lawsuit to proceed to trial. “There is no bright-line rule that the combination of two unprotectable [sic] elements is insufficiently numerous to constitute an original work,” Judge Stanton declared. He continued: “A work may be copyrightable even though it is entirely a compilation of unprotectable elements.” According to Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, a “bright-line rule” is defined as “an objective rule that resolves legal questions in a straightforward, predictable manner.” Judge Stanton believed that Sheeran’s case was too nuanced for him to make a decision either way and has decided to leave it up to the opinion of a jury. A date for the trial has not been set yet. This specific case against Sheeran has gone on for quite some time. The family of Ed Townsend, the co-writer of “Let’s Get It On,” initially filed the suit in 2016 before a judge dismissed the case the following year, as reported by The Wrap. But the judge dismissed the case without prejudice, leaving it open for the suit to be filed again later on. According to PEOPLE, the case was brought up again in 2018 by the Structured Asset Sales organization after it bought a third of the Townsend family’s shares and sought $100 million from Sheeran. The owner of Structured Asset Sales, David Pullman, said after the announcement that the case would go to trial that he was “pleased” and that he “looks forward to more success in this case which involves the largest copyright infringement in history.” More News:
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