This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Legal Top Stories
Now Ed Sheeran’s being sued for ripping off a Marvin Gaye record
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 10 August 2016
You know how we said Ed Sheeran being accused of ripping off a Matt Cardle song was his equivalent of Robin Thicke being accused of ripping off a Marvin Gaye song? Yeah, well scratch that. Ed Sheeran has been accused of ripping off a Marvin Gaye song.
Though, whereas it was the Marvin Gaye estate that accused Thicke of ripping off ‘Got To Give It Up’ on his hit ‘Blurred Lines’, it’s the estate of one of Gaye’s co-writers who is accusing Sheeran of ripping off ‘Let’s Get It On’ for his song ‘Thinking Out Loud’.
According to Reuters, the heirs of songwriter Ed Townsend are now suing Sheeran and his publisher for allegedly ripping off the “melody, harmony and rhythm compositions” of ‘Let’s Get It On’ while writing ‘Thinking Out Loud’. So that’s fun, isn’t it?
Sheeran, of course, is already fighting one song-theft lawsuit, after he and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid were accused of ripping off Matt Cardle track ‘Amazing’ on ‘Photograph’, the hit they co-wrote for Sheeran’s 2014 album ‘x’.
‘Amazing’ writers Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard sued Sheeran and McDaid earlier this year after hiring the lawyer who led the Gaye family’s successful plagiarism lawsuit against the aforementioned Thicke and his mate Pharrell Williams.
It’s reassuring to know, isn’t it, that in these uncertain times, and within this ever-evolving, rapidly-changing and some-might-say-imploding industry, some things are a constant. Like, where there’s a hit, there’s always a writ.