After making an appearance in court on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, renowned British musician Ed Sheeran, who is now on trial for allegedly plagiarizing the Marvin Gaye classic “Let’s Get It On” for his own 2014 hit song, “Thinking out loud,” refuted the accusations made against him.
The ‘Perfect’ crooner said that if the accusations of copyright infringement were genuine, he would be “quite an idiot” to play the two songs together in public.
The heirs of Ed Townsend, Gaye’s co-writer on the 1973 soul smash, requested that Ed Sheeran, who doubles as a songwriter, appear in court to testify in the trial. Recall that the family had accused the musician of breaching their copyright, highlighting how his 2014 song shared “overt common elements” and “striking similarities” with the well-known Gaye song.
However, responding to video footage which was played in the courtroom showing the artiste segueing on stage between the two songs, Sheeran stated, ‘’ “I’d be an idiot to stand on a stage in front of 20,000 people and do that.’’
The music community, which has witnessed judges and juries struggle in recent years with how to draw the line between musical building blocks that are accessible to all and the complex combination of elements that go into a copyright-able song, is closely following the trial, which began on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
