In 2016, the daughter of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On,” filed a lawsuit over the same song in a federal court in the Southern District of New York for copying core components of the classic hit.
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| Ed Sheeran performs on the Pyramid Stage at Worthy Farm in Somerset during the Glastonbury Festival in Britain, June 25, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez/File Photo |
By Vaishnavi Vaidyanathan, International Business Times
A lawsuit has been filed against singer Ed Sheeran for allegedly using components of Marvin Gaye's 1973 classic “Let's Get It On” in his 2014 hit, “Thinking Out Loud.”
Entertainment website TMZ reported that the $100 million lawsuit filed by Structured Asset Sales (SAS), which owns part of the copyright of Gaye's hit, at the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York claims that the singer copied “melody, rhythms, harmonies, drums, bassline, backing chorus, tempo, syncopation and looping” of Gaye’s song for his single.
Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the Atlantic record label and Amy Wadge — who co-wrote the song are the other defendants in the claim.
In 2016, daughter of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On,” filed a lawsuit over the same song in a federal court in the Southern District of New York for copying core components of the classic hit.
The court papers claimed that “The Defendants copied the heart of Let's and repeated it continuously throughout Thinking.”
“The melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic compositions of Thinking are substantially and/or strikingly similar to the drum composition of Let's,” the papers claimed, the Evening Standard reported.
The song that was released in 2014 dominated the U.K. and U.S. charts and the album X which featured the song sold more than 15 million copies and was also nominated for a Grammy in 2015.
The song credited to Sheeran and Wadge also became the first song to hit 500 million streams on Spotify.
In 2014, a separate lawsuit was filed against Sheeran for $20 million by two songwriters over copyright infringement.
Songwriters Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard alleged Sheeran used identical notes from a song they wrote in 2009 entitled “Amazing” in his in his 2014 single “Photograph.”
Forbes reported that Sheeran’s net worth as of December 2017 is $37 million. His album, "÷," that released in 2017 had two songs that broke Spotify records with a combined total of over 13 million streams in 24 hours.
Gaye is a veteran singer-songwriter with hits like “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and “Mercy Mercy Me" in a career that lasted for 25 years.
Gaye died in 1984, after being shot in the chest and killed by his father.
In 2013, Gaye’s children sued singers Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for copying their father’s 1977 hit "Got to Give It Up" to create the hit “Blurred Lines,” the Guardian reported.
Two years later, the children were awarded $7.4 million by a jury.
“Right now, I feel free,” Gaye’s daughter Nona Gaye said after the verdict.
“Free from ... Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s chains and what they tried to keep on us and the lies that were told,” she added.
“Blurred lines” sold more than 7.3 million copies in the U.S. and also earned a Grammy nomination for the singers.
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