Ed Sheeran recently hit out at "baseless" copyright claims, saying they're "way too common". Photo / Dean Purcell
Ed Sheeran recently hit out at "baseless" copyright claims, saying they're "way too common". Photo / Dean Purcell
Ed Sheeran is set to face a copyright trial over claims he copied Marvin Gaye's track Let's Get It On.
Sheeran released his single Thinking out Loud in 2014, but in 2018 a claim was lodged by a US company which partly owns the rights to Gaye's 1973 hit, claiming £90 million ($180 million) in damages.
A judge in the US has ordered that Sheeran face a civil copyright trial over claims he copied the song, in a decision which comes just six months after the British pop star was cleared of copying claims for another of his tracks following a UK hearing.
After winning this case, concerning the 2017 song Shape Of You, Sheeran hit out at "baseless" copyright claims and claimed they were "way too common".
Sheeran has attempted to have the latest copyright case against him dismissed, but US Judge Louis Stanton has said that a jury must decide whether he copied elements of Let's Get It On.
The claim that he did copy the song has been made not by Gaye's family but by Structured Asset Sales, a company owned by investment banker David Pullman.
The company owns part of the rights to the song, which was acquired from the estate of Let's Get It On co-writer Ed Townsend.
A jury will not only decide whether copying took place, Judge Stanton ruled, but whether Sheeran's proceeds from the tour conducted off the back of his hit Thinking out Loud can be included in any potential damages.
Ed Sheeran has attempted to have the latest copyright case against him dismissed. Photo / Supplied
Sheeran's team have not commented on the judge's decision, but a lawyer for Structured Asset Sales told Reuters the company was "pleased" with the ruling that the copyright trial should go ahead.
Sheeran recently sat through a trial at the High Court In London, responding to claims he copied elements of his song Shape Of you from an earlier track by relatively unknown artists Sami Chokri and Ross O'Donoghue.
A High Court judge ruled that Sheeran and his co-writers had not plagiarised the song, and they were awarded £900,000 ($1.8 million) in costs.
Sheeran subsequently released a statement on social media, saying: "I hope that this ruling means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided. This really does have to end.
"It's really damaging to the songwriting industry. There's only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music.
"Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotify. That's 22 million songs a year, and there's only 12 notes that are available."
