So it seems that Ed Sheeran won’t be retiring from the music biz after all, after he won the copyright lawsuit against him this week. However, the Grammy Award winning songwriter is still vexed that the case even went to trial.
Sheeran told reporters that he would not be “used as a piggy bank” after facing a lawsuit over alleged copyright claims that ‘Thinking Out Loud’ copied Marvin Gaye’s hit song ‘Let’s Get It On.’ Not to mention – it meant he had to miss his grandma’s funeral.
Ed Sheeran is PISSED despite being found not guilty of copyright
“I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake. Having to be in NY for this trial means I’ve missed being w/my family at my grandmother’s funeral and I will never get that time back.” pic.twitter.com/Mlk9YEa2zl
— Gunz (@TheGunzShow) May 4, 2023
“It looks like I’m not having to retire from my day job afterall.
But at the same time I am unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court.”
After three hours of deliberation, the jury found Sheeran not liable of copyright infringement that his song was copying Marvin Gaye co-writer Ed Townsend’s 1973 classic. It turns out Gaye’s family weren’t even part of the lawsuit, instead it was the Townsend estate that claimed that Sheeran’s song had ‘striking similarities’ to the song their dad co-wrote with Gaye.
Ed Sheeran could have settled the whole thing out of court and avoided all the drama, but fair play to him – he went through the very public, time-consuming and exhausting process because he realised how important this case would be for the future of music. He summed it up pretty well in court when he explained there’s only so many chords that exist in pop music and that most pop songs can easily blend with others.
No matter what you think of Ed Sheeran’s music, and whether you were hoping he’d follow through on his promise to quit music if the trial didn’t go his way, there was a lot more at stake here that could really impact the future of songwriting if the jury made the wrong call. You’d suddenly see so many more baseless lawsuits with artists suing each other for plagiarism left, right and centre. As Ed Sheeran says, this should have never gone to trial to begin with. But at least it’s done and dusted now.
For the Ed Sheeran doppelganger who claims that looking like Ed Sheeran has ruined his life, click HERE.
