Non-idiot (allegedly) Ed Sheeran testifies on first day of Thinking Out Loud song-theft trial

completemusicupdate.com:

A video that Ed Sheeran’s lawyers tried to stop being shown to jurors in the big ‘Thinking Out Loud’ song-theft trial is the “smoking gun” that proves that the pop star ripped off Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ when he wrote his song.

Or so said a lawyer representing the estate of ‘Let’s Get It On’ co-writer Ed Townsend as that trial got underway in New York yesterday.

But not so, reckoned Sheeran himself. Unless you believe him to be a fucking idiot. And I mean, do you?The latest in a number of song-theft lawsuits filed against Sheeran, the COVID pandemic somewhat delayed the Townsend estate’s litigation over ‘Thinking Out Loud’ from getting properly to court.

But things finally got underway yesterday. The estate reckons that Sheeran’s 2014 song – a co-write with Amy Wadge – is a copyright-infringing rip off of the Marvin Gaye classic.We already knew – from pre-trial wrangling – that a key piece of evidence in the court battle was going to be a clip recorded at a 2014 Sheeran concert in which the musician mashed together ‘Thinking Out Loud’ and ‘Let’s Get It On’.