Ed Sheeran Wins Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Over ‘Thinking Out Loud’

Musician Ed Sheeran walks into Manhattan federal court in New York City on April 25, 2023. Brittainy Newman/AP Photo

A federal appeals court ruled in favor of singer Ed Sheeran in a case that accused him of plagiarizing music from a five-decade-old song.

The case revolves around “Thinking Out Loud,” co-written by Sheeran in 2014, said a Nov. 1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The hit number went on to garner billions of streaming views and win two Grammy Awards. Structured Asset Sales (SAS), which owns interest in royalties from the 1973 song “Let’s Get It On,” filed a lawsuit in 2018, accusing Sheeran of copying certain musical components.

SAS alleged that the chord progression and harmonic rhythm of the two songs are similar. Sheeran moved for summary judgment, which is a court decision made on evidence and statements alone without the case needing a full trial.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in his favor, deciding that Sheeran had not infringed on the protected elements of “Let’s Get It On.”

The court concluded that the chord progression and harmonic rhythm in the 1973 song are “so commonplace, in isolation and in combination, that to protect their combination would give [Let’s Get It On] an impermissible monopoly over a basic musical building block.”

SAS then appealed the decision to the Appeals Court, which on Nov. 1 affirmed the district court’s ruling.

“Let’s Get It On” was written by Ed Townsend and Marvin Gaye. In 1973, Townsend registered a copyright for the song by sending the Deposit Copy to the Copyright Office. A Deposit Copy contains the sheet music for the song’s melody, harmony, rhythm, and lyrics.

The district court concluded that SAS’s infringement claim is only limited to the scope of the Deposit Copy. In its appeal, SAS argued that the district court erred in limiting the evidence in the case.

But the Appeals Court agreed with the district court’s ruling, noting that “the scope of a copyright in a musical work registered under the Copyright Act of 1909 (‘1909 Act’) is limited to the elements found in the copy of the work deposited with the Copyright Office.”

In other words, the Copyright Act only protects the musical composition of a song as defined by the sheet music deposited with the Copyright Office.

“We affirm the district court’s exclusion of evidence—including expert testimony—about anything beyond the four corners of the Deposit Copy,” the court said.

Challenging Summary Judgment

SAS also challenged the district court’s decision to enter into a summary judgment, claiming that a jury should decide the case after inspecting similarities between the songs.

However, the Appeals Court stated that the district court “correctly concluded” that Sheeran was entitled to a summary judgment.

“SAS failed to raise a triable issue of fact as to whether the selection and arrangement of the musical building blocks here—a four-chord progression and syncopated harmonic rhythm whose combination undisputedly is present in other prominent musical works—is original enough to be protectable,” the court noted. “Taken as a whole, no reasonable jury could find that Thinking Out Loud is so substantially similar to Let’s Get It On as to support an inference of wrongful copying.”

The Appeals Court stated that SAS has failed in rebutting evidence that the same combination of a four-chord progression and syncopated harmonic rhythm had already appeared in multiple well-known songs predating “Let’s Get It On.”

Vince Valholla, music producer and chairman of Valholla Worldwide Entertainment Group, welcomed the court ruling in a Nov. 2 X post.

“If this case succeeded, it could have put many songs up for being contested and would have limited creativity,” he wrote. “This isn’t the first case Ed’s won in copyright lawsuits but again, this is a win not only for Ed but for all songwriters.”

Sheeran has been a target of several copyright lawsuits, given that his music is inspired by multiple styles like pop, classic soul, and R&B. However, rather than settling lawsuits, he has opted to go to trial on the cases.

After he won a lawsuit in 2022 over his hit song “Shape of You,” Sheeran said in a Twitter video at the time that such claims “are way too common now and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there is no basis for the claim.”

He said that such actions are “really damaging to the songwriting industry.”