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Ed Sheeran discusses song-theft claims in pre-trial interview
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 9 May 2023
The ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ programme in the US this weekend aired an interview with Ed Sheeran recorded before last week’s ruling in the big song-theft case over his 2014 song ‘Thinking Out Loud’ in which he discussed the legal battle.
Sheeran was accused of ripping off Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ when he wrote ‘Thinking Out Loud’ by the estate of the former song’s co-writer Ed Townsend. But Sheeran and his lawyers countered that the two songs sound similar simply because they are built out of the same musical building blocks, which are not protected by copyright in isolation.
And last week a jury in New York agreed with Team Sheeran, concluding that the musician had not infringed the copyright in ‘Let’s Get It On’ when he wrote ‘Thinking Out Loud’.
As part of a feature for CBS to promote his new album ‘-‘, Sheeran was asked about the legal dispute that was still going through the motions when the interview was recorded. And he answered the questions despite his team seemingly urging him not to comment.
“There’s like four chords that get used in pop songs”, he mused. “And if you just think mathematically the likelihood of this song having the same chords as this song – there’s multiple, multiple songs – it’s all the same four chords…”
Which means, he added, if you believe short and common musical segments can be protected by copyright, “you are going to get [copyright claims] with every single pop song from now on. Unless it just stops, which I don’t think it [will] because it’s a big money business to take things to court”.
But, as he has demonstrated by fighting the ‘Thinking Out Loud’ case in the New York courts this month, and the ‘Shape Of You’ song-theft claim in the London courts last year, Sheeran is now willing to fight any such claims if and when they are made against his songs.
He concluded: “You can only get caught out if you’ve done something wrong and I have not done something wrong. I used four chords that are very common chords to use”.
