US Supreme Court rejects bid to revive copyright suit over Ed Sheeran hit Thinking Out Loud

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court turned away on Monday a bid to revive a copyright infringement lawsuit accusing pop star Ed Sheeran of unlawfully copying from the late singer Marvin Gayes 1973 classic Lets Get It On in his 2014 hit song Thinking Out Loud.

The justices declined to hear an appeal by Structured Asset Sales, a company owned by investment banker David Pullman that has a copyright interest in Gayes song, of a judges decision to dismiss the case. The company had sued Sheeran, his record label Warner Music and music publisher Sony Music Publishing, seeking monetary damages over alleged similarities between the two songs.

Gaye, who died in 1984, collaborated with singer-songwriter Ed Townsend, who died in 2003, to write Lets Get It On, which topped the Billboard charts. Sheerans Thinking Out Loud peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2015.

Structured Asset Sales owns a share of the rights to Lets Get It On that previously belonged to Townsend. Its lawsuit accused Sheeran of misusing copyrighted elements of Lets Get It On including its melody, harmony and rhythm.

U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton decided in 2023 that the musical elements that Sheeran was accused of copying were too common to merit copyright protection.

The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheldthe decision last year. The 2nd Circuit also rejected the Structured Asset Sales argument that Stanton should have considered elements of Lets Get It On that were not found in the deposit copy of the songs sheet music submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office.

In a 2023 trial in a separate copyright lawsuit over the same issue filed by Townsends heirs, a jury in Manhattan federal court ruled in favor of Sheeran.

Its devastating to be accused of stealing someone elses