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NEW YORK (AP) — Attorneys for the heir to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” song co-writer are at civil trial begins On Tuesday, he had “smoking guns” that Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” infringed the Soul Classic’s copyright.
Ben Crump, a lawyer representing Ed Townsend’s heirs, said in his opening statement that the British pop star combined the two songs in concert and that jurors will See.
He said combining the song was tantamount to a “confession”.
“We have smoking guns,” he said of concert footage showing Sheeran switching between two songs.
Crump said the case was about “giving credit where credit is due.”
Sheeran, 32, looked to his lawyer, Ilene Farkas, and insisted that Sheeran and a co-writer, Amy Wadge, wrote their songs independently, with no input from Townsend. (Townsend) and Gaye (Gaye) there to steal.
She said they “created this first song from the heart, without copying ‘Let’s Get It On’.”
The chord progressions and basic musical building blocks in Sheeran’s songs were used so frequently that they didn’t appear first on “Let’s Get it On,” his attorney said.
Since its debut in 1973, “Let’s Get It On” has been heard in countless films and commercials and has garnered hundreds of millions of streams, spins and radio plays. “Thinking Out Loud” won the 2016 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
The lawsuit was filed in 2017. The trial is expected to last two weeks.
Townsend, who also wrote the 1958 R&B doo-wop hit “For Your Love,” is a singer, songwriter and attorney. He passed away in 2003. His daughter, Kathryn Townsend Griffin, is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.
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