According to a court ruling, Ed Sheeran did not appropriate the song’s concept from Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye

Ed Sheeran has won a legal battle after it was decided that his song “Thinking Out Loud” did not violate Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On” copyright. The family of “Let’s Get It On” co-writer Ed Townsend filed a lawsuit against English music artist Sheeran in 2016, accusing him of plagiarism for the first time. The following year, the complaint was dropped, but in 2018, Structured Asset Sales, a business that owns a portion of “Let’s Get It On“‘s royalties, accused Sheeran of stealing the song’s rhythm and chord pattern from Marvin Gaye. According to a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Sheeran’s 2014 hit song did not violate copyright.

The two songs share only fundamental musical building blocks and to rule in Structured Asset Sales’ favour would be detrimental to the creativity of artists everywhere. The four-chord progression at issue – ubiquitous in pop music – even coupled with a syncopated harmonic rhythm, is too well-explored to meet the originality threshold that copyright law demands. Overprotecting such basic elements would threaten to stifle creativity and undermine the purpose of copyright law.

Similarities between a modern pop star’s song and a rock classic have before resulted in legal action against them. Sam Smith and Tom Petty reached an out-of-court settlement in 2015 after it was revealed that Petty‘s 1989 song “I Won’t Back Down” and Smith‘s popular ballad “Stay With Me” have similarities. John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival was sued for plagiarism in 1982, making it one of the stranger cases of music copying. Let’s not forget also Avril Lavigne and The Rubinoos more recently, when they claimed that Lavigne‘s song “Girlfriend” was plagiarizing their track “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend“.