Ed Sheeran broke down in tears after a jury found his hit song Thinking Out Loud did not copy Marvin Gaye’s classic ‘Let’s Get It On’.
As the jury at Manhattan federal court cleared Sheeran, 32, of infringing copyright, he briefly put his hands over his face in relief before standing and hugging his lawyer.
His co-writer Amy Wadge said she and Sheeran ‘had a few tears’ of relief after winning the $100million case.
Speaking outside the court, Sheeran said: ‘I’m just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy. I am not and will not allow myself to be a piggy bank.’
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Sheeran vehemently denied allegations that his song stole fundamental musical elements from Gaye’s song. The singer had staked his whole career on the case, vowing that he would be ‘done’ with music if found guilty.
Speaking outside the court, Sheeran said: ‘I’m just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy. I am not and will not allow myself to be a piggy bank.’
Ed Sheeran vehemently denied allegations that his song stole fundamental musical elements from Gaye’s song. The singer had staked his whole career on the case, vowing that he would be ‘done’ with music if found guilty.
Sheeran added: ‘I’m obviously very happy with the outcome of the case and it looks like I’m not having to retire from my day job after all.
‘At the same time I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all.
‘We’ve spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords which are also different and used by songwriters every day all over the world.
‘These chords are common building blocks which were used to create music long before Let’s Get It On was written and will be used to create music long after we are all gone.
‘They are in a songwriter’s alphabet, our toolkit, and should be there for all of us to use.
‘No one owns them or the way they are played, in the same way that no one owns the color blue.’
He added that if the verdict had gone the other way ‘we might as well say goodbye to the creative freedom of songwriters’ and that artists need to be able to create original music ‘without worrying at every step on the way that said creativity will be wrongly called into question’.
‘It is devastating to be accused of stealing someone else’s song when we put so much work into our livelihoods,’ he added.
The singer also said he missed his grandmother’s funeral in Ireland because of the trial, and that he ‘won’t get that time back’.
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