Ed Sheeran Speaks Out After Winning Copyright Case, Slams ‘Baseless’ Plagiarism Claims

usmagazine.com:

A victory with a message. Ed Sheeran spoke out after winning a copyright case about his song “Thinking Out Loud” — and slammed the practice of suing artists for using “common building blocks” of music.“I’m obviously very happy with the outcome of the case, and it looks like I’m not having to retire from my day job after all,” the Grammy winner, 32, began in a press conference on Thursday, May 4. “But at the same time, I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all.

We spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords which are also different and used by songwriters every day all over the world.”The “Shape of You” crooner continued: “These chords are common building blocks which were used to create music long before ‘Let’s Get It On’ was written and will be used to make music long after we are all gone.

They are in a songwriter’s alphabet, our toolkit, and should be there for all of us to use. No one owns them or the way they are played in the same way that nobody owns the color blue.”Sheeran’s impassioned speech came after a federal jury decided on Thursday that his 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud” doesn’t copy Marvin Gaye’s 1973 classic “Let’s Get It On.” The family of Gaye’s cowriter, Ed Townsend, sued Sheeran in 2017, claiming that the two songs had enough similarities to violate copyright laws.On Thursday, however, the jury found that Sheeran and his cowriter Amy Wadge had created the song independently.In his speech, the “Sing” musician called out the plaintiff’s “expert” witnesses who attempted to prove that the two songs were similar. “Unfortunately, unfounded claims like this are being fueled by individuals who