NEW YORK (AP) — British singer Ed Sheeran did not steal essential parts of Marvin Gaye’s classic 1970s tune “Let’s Get It On” to create his hit song “Thinking Out Loud,” a jury has ruled in Thursday’s trial verdict, prompting Sheeran. to joke later that he didn’t have to follow through on his threat to quit music.
The emotions of an epic copyright battle that has spanned most of the last decade came to the fore as the seven-person jury announced its verdict after more than two hours of deliberations.
Sheeran, 32, briefly dropped his face into his hands in relief before standing up to hug his lawyer, Ilene Farkas. As the jurors left the courtroom in front of him, Sheeran smiled, nodded to some of them, and mouthed the words: “Thank you.” Later, he posed for a photo in the hallway with a juror staying behind.
He also approached plaintiff Kathryn Townsend Griffin, the daughter of Ed Townsend, who co-created the 1973 soul classic with Gaye, and testified. They talked for about 10 minutes, hugging and smiling and, at one point, holding hands.
Sheeran later spoke to reporters outside the courthouse, revisiting his claim made during the trial that he would consider quitting songwriting if he lost the case.
“I’m obviously very happy with the outcome of this case, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to retire from my job, after all. But at the same time, I am unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all,” the singer said, reading from a prepared statement.
He also said he missed his grandmother’s funeral in Ireland because of the trial, and “can’t get that time back.”
Inside the courthouse after the verdict, Griffin said he was relieved.
“I’m just glad it’s over,” he said of the trial. “We can be friends.”
He said he was happy that Sheeran approached him.
“It showed me who he was,” Griffin said.
He said his copyright case was not personal but he wanted to fulfill a promise to his father to protect his intellectual property.
One juror, Sophia Neis, told reporters afterward that there was no immediate consensus when deliberations began.
“Everybody has opinions coming in. Both sides have advocates, said Neis, 23. “There’s a lot of back and forth.”
The verdict ended a two-week trial that featured a courtroom performance by Sheeran as the singer, sometimes angry, whose trial was a threat to all musicians who create their own music.
Sheeran sat with his legal team throughout the proceedings, defending himself against a lawsuit by Townsend’s heirs, who claimed that “Thinking Out Loud” had so much in common with “Let’s Get It On” that it violated copyright protection. song copyright.
This is not the first court victory for a singer whose musical style draws on classic soul, pop and R&B, making him a target for copyright lawsuits. A year ago, Sheeran won a UK copyright battle over his 2017 hit “Shape of You” and then slammed what he called a “culture” of frivolous lawsuits forcing settlements from artists who are anxious to avoid the expense of the trial.
Outside court, Sheeran said he didn’t want to be taken advantage of.
“I’m just a guy with a guitar who likes to write music for people to enjoy,” he says. “I am not and I will never be willing to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake.”
At the start of the trial, lawyer Ben Crump told jurors on behalf of Townsend’s heirs that Sheeran himself had once performed the two songs together. The jury saw video of a concert in Switzerland where Sheeran can be heard segueing on stage between “Let’s Get It On” and “Thinking Out Loud.” Crump says this is “smoking gun” proof that Sheeran stole the popular tune.
In his closing argument Wednesday, Farkas said Crump’s “smoking gun” fired blanks.
He says the only common element between the two songs is “basic in the tool kit of all songwriters” and “the scaffolding on which all songwriting is built.”
“They did not copy. Unintentional. Unaware. Not at all,” Farkas said.
When Sheeran testified over two days for the defense, he repeatedly picked up a guitar that sat behind him on the witness stand to show how he seamlessly creates “mashups” of two or three songs on concert to “make it a little better” for his size. many people
The cheerfulness the English pop star displayed under questioning by her lawyer disappeared under cross examination.
“When you’re writing songs, someone’s going to follow you,” Sheeran testified, adding that the case is being closely watched by others in the industry.
He insisted that he and the song’s co-writer — Amy Wadge — stole nothing from “Let’s Get it On.”
Townsend’s heirs said in their lawsuit that “Thinking Out Loud” had “striking similarities” and “overt common elements” that made it clear it copied “Let’s Get It On,” a song featured on numerous films and commercials and has scored hundreds of millions of stream spins and radio plays over the past half century.
Sheeran’s song, which came out in 2014, was a hit, winning a Grammy for song of the year.
Sheeran’s label, Atlantic Records, and Sony/ATV Music Publishing are also named as defendants in the “Thinking Out Loud” lawsuit, but the focus of the litigation is Sheeran.
Wadge, who was not charged, testified on his behalf and hugged Sheeran after the verdict.
Gaye was killed in 1984 at the age of 44, shot by his father as he tried to intervene in a fight between his parents. He has been a Motown superstar since the 1960s, though his songs released in the 1970s made him a generational musical giant.
Townsend, who also wrote the 1958 R&B doo-wop hit “For Your Love,” was a singer, songwriter and attorney who died in 2003. Griffin, his daughter, testified during the trial that he thought Sheeran was “a great artist with a bright future.”
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Associated Press Writer Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Find more AP stories about Ed Sheeran: https://apnews.com/hub/ed-sheeran
