In April 2022, the 32-year-old singer and songwriter won a similar but separate legal battle when the High Court in London dismissed two musicians accusing him of copying one of their work, for his mega hit "Shape of You".
This time, the plaintiffs are the heirs of Ed Townsend, an American musician and producer who co-wrote "Let's get it on" with Marvin Gaye. Released in 1973, this soul classic has remained famous for its guitar notes and sensual vocalizations of the Motown prince.
In their copyright infringement complaint, Townsend's heirs, including his daughter, say there are "striking resemblances" to "Thinking Out Loud," released in 2014.
They want as proof that the group Boyz 2 Men had mixed the two songs on stage. Ed Sheeran himself had chained in concert the lines, very different, of the two tubes, on the same harmonies of guitar, a sequence still visible on the internet.
A "proof" disputed by the singer's lawyers, for whom "there are dozens, even hundreds of songs before and after +Let's get it on + that use the same chord progression or a similar progression".
Ed Sheeran's hit ranked 2nd on the Billboard Hot 100, the US benchmark chart and won the Grammy Award for best song of the year in 2016.
The complaint, filed in 2016, was initially dismissed on a procedural issue, then refiled in 2017, also against Sony.
Ed Sheeran had come in person to defend his song "Shape of you" in the previous trial in London, a case he considered emblematic of abusive practices that undermine creation. He could also be present during the trial in New York.
The judge had agreed with him, considering that he had not copied, even "unconsciously", part of the melody of the song "Oh Why" (2015) by Sami Chokri and Ross O'Donoghue.
The judge had noted "obvious similarities" between the two songs, with a melody from the minor pentatonic scale as "countless pop, rock, folk and blues songs", but also "important differences".
© 2023 AFP