Judge declines to issue summary judgement in second song theft case over Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud

completemusicupdate.com:

A US judge has declined to dismiss one of the song-theft lawsuits that alleges Ed Sheeran ripped off Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ when he wrote his 2014 song ‘Thinking Out Loud’, concluding that a jury needs to consider whether the elements shared by the two songs are protected by copyright.Sheeran’s lawyers have been quite busy over the years dealing with various allegations that the musician has lifted elements of existing songs when writing his pop music.

That included the headline-grabbing legal battle in the UK courts over ‘Shape Of You’, in which the Sheeran side was victorious.Over in the US, ‘Thinking Out Loud’ has resulted in multiple song-theft lawsuits.

It was the estate of ‘Let’s Get It On’ co-writer Ed Townsend who originally sued back in 2016. But then a company called Structured Asset Sale – which also owns a stake in the ‘Let’s Get It On’ copyright – filed its own litigation.

In fact, it sued twice. It’s the SAS lawsuit that’s been ruled on this weekThe defences provided in song theft cases are now pretty routine.