According to ‘Variety,’ Ed Sheeran was acquitted on Thursday (US East Coast Time) in Manhattan federal court in New York City on a claim that he plagiarised the Marvin Gaye ’70s smash Let’s Get It On for his own Thinking Out Loud.
Ed Sheeran
‘Variety’ reports that the judgment finding him not guilty of copyright infringement came after only a few hours of discussion. The jury had formally begun deliberations following closing statements on Wednesday evening, but because it was after 5 p.m., the judge only held them for a brief get-acquainted session before sending them home for the night.
U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton had sent the Manhattan jury into deliberations with a pointed admonition: “Independent creation is a complete defence, no matter how similar that song is.”
According to ‘Variety,’ Stanton’s directions set a high bar for the plaintiffs’ counsel to prove that Ed Sheeran and his co-writer genuinely copied Gaye’s 1973 song Let’s Get It On when they wrote the 2014 pop hit Thinking Out Loud.
According to ‘Variety,’ Stanton instructed jurors that the lawyers for Gaye’s co-writer, Ed Townsend, needed to “prove by a preponderance of the evidence… that Ed Sheeran actually copied and wrongfully copied ‘Let’s Get It On,'” rather than the coincidental, negligible similarities argued by Sheeran’s attorneys.
