Ed Sheeran losing will remove “an essential element in every songwriter’s toolkit”, argues lawyer in song-theft case

completemusicupdate.com:

Ed Sheeran’s threat that he will quit music if he loses the current ‘Thinking Out Loud’ song-theft case in New York might have actually boosted support for the Ed Townsend estate that instigated this legal battle.

However, Sheeran’s lawyer warned yesterday, if her client loses, all songwriters lose because of the precedent that ruling will set.

And do you really want every single songwriter in the world to lose? Well, do you?The Townsend estate accuses Sheeran of ripping off Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ – which Townsend co-wrote – on his 2014 song ‘Thinking Out Loud’.

The Sheeran side counters that the two songs simply share some of the same musical building blocks, as do many other songs, including a significant number released before ‘Let’s Get It On’.During closing arguments in the New York court yesterday, Sheeran’s lawyer Ilene Farkas said that this case should never have filed in the first place. “Ed Townsend did not create these basic musical building blocks”, she added, according to The Independent. “Ed Townsend was not the first songwriter to use and combine these elements.