Ed Sheeran has been slapped with another lawsuit over his 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud.”
According to TMZ, Structured Asset Sales, which owns one-third of the rights to the 1973 Marvin Gaye song “Let’s Get It On,” is seeking $100 million (all figures U.S.). It alleges that “Thinking Out Loud” copies many of the elements of “Let’s Get It On.”
Sheeran faced a similar allegation when he was sued in August 2016 by heirs of Ed Townsend, who penned “Let’s Get It On” with Gaye. The case was dismissed in February 2017 due to improper service of papers but was successfully refiled in July 2017.
That lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleges: “The Defendants copied the ‘heart’ of Let’s and repeated it continually throughout Thinking. . . . The melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic compositions of Thinking are substantially and/or strikingly similar to the drum composition of Let’s.”
It noted that in a 2014 concert in Zurich, Sheeran performed a mash-up of the two songs, which only highlighted their similarities.
None of the allegations have been proven in a court and Sheeran has not publicly responded to the claims.
This past April, Sheeran settled a $20 million copyright infringement lawsuit from songwriters Thomas Leonard and Martin Harrington, who alleged that his 2014 hit “Photograph” was a “note-for-note copying” of their 2009 song “Amazing.”
Part of the confidential settlement included giving songwriter credits to Leonard and Harrington on “Photograph.”
In January, songwriters Sean Carey and Beau Golden filed a $5 million copyright infringement lawsuit against Sheeran that claims the melody of “The Rest Of Our Life” – which Sheeran wrote for country stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill – is ripped from their song “When I Found You.”
Sheeran’s lawyers have countered that his song is “an originally and independently created musical composition.”