Ed Sheeran has said that he doesn’t have to retire from his day job of making music after all having won his “Thinking Out Loud” case.
A US court ruled that the British singer-songwriter did not copy Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” when composing “Thinking Out Loud”.
Sheeran stood up and hugged his team after jurors ruled that he “independently” created his song.
He had denied stealing elements of the song for his 2014 worldwide hit, going as far as saying that if he lost the case, he would leave his beloved music career.
“If that happens, I’m done, I’m stopping,” he said when asked about the toll the trial at Manhattan federal court was taking on him.
Speaking outside court, Sheeran said he was “obviously very happy” with the ruling.
“It looks like I’m not going to have to retire from my day job after all,” he said. “But at the same time I am absolutely frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all.
“If the jury had decided this matter the other way we might as well say goodbye to the creative freedom of songwriters.”
“I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake,” he added.
Heirs of Gaye’s co-writer argued that Sheeran, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Publishing owed them money for copyright infringement.
A musicologist for Sheeran’s defence told the court that the four-chord sequence in question was used in several songs before Gaye’s hit came out in 1973.
Kathryn Townsend Griffin, the daughter of Gaye’s co-writer Ed Townsend, accused Sheeran of copyright infringement. She walked swiftly past reporters smoking what appeared to be a cigarillo, saying only: “God is good all the time, all the time God is good.”
