US Supreme Court rejects bid to revive Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' copyright suit

The U.S. Supreme Court turned away on Monday a bid to revive a copyright infringement lawsuit accusing pop star Ed Sheeran of unlawfully copying from the late singer Marvin Gaye’s 1973 classic ‘Let’s Get It On’ in his 2014 hit song ‘Thinking Out Loud’.

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The justices declined to hear an appeal by Structured Asset Sales, a company owned by investment banker David Pullman that has a copyright interest in Gaye’s song, of a judge’s decision to dismiss the case. The company had sued Ed Sheeran, his record label Warner Music and music publisher Sony Music Publishing, seeking monetary damages over alleged similarities between the two songs.

Gaye, who died in 1984, collaborated with singer-songwriter Ed Townsend, who died in 2003, to write ‘Let’s Get It On’, which topped the Billboard charts. Sheeran’s ‘Thinking Out Loud’ peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2015.

Structured Asset Sales owns a share of the rights to ‘Let’s Get It On’ that previously belonged to Townsend. Its lawsuit accused Sheeran of misusing copyrighted elements of ‘Let’s Get It On’, including its melody, harmony and rhythm.

U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton decided in 2023 that the musical elements that Sheeran was accused of copying were too common to merit copyright protection.

The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision last year. The 2nd Circuit also rejected the Structured Asset Sales argument that Stanton should have considered elements of ‘Let’s Get It On’ that were not found in the ‘deposit copy’ of the song’s sheet music submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office.

In a 2023 trial in a separate copyright lawsuit over the same issue filed by Townsend’s heirs, a jury in Manhattan federal court ruled in favour of Sheeran.

“It’s devastating to be accused of stealing someone else’s song when we’ve put so much work into our livelihoods,” Sheeran said outside the courthouse following that verdict.

Structured Asset Sales has filed another lawsuit against Sheeran based on its rights to the audio recording of ‘Let’s Get It On’. That case is currently on hold.

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