Ed Sheeran is being sued in America over claims he copied Marvin Gaye for his hit “Thinking Out Loud”.
The copyright infringement claim is driven by the family of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the 1973 hit with Marvin Gaye, and it states that Sheeran copied “the heart of Let’s and repeated it continuously throughout Thinking”.
The lawsuit also claims “the harmonic progressions, melodic and rhythmic elements central to “Let’s Get It On” formed the structure of “Thinking Out Loud”.
“Thinking Out Loud”, taken from his latest album X, is one of Ed Sheeran’s biggest hits.
The song won Best Pop Solo Performance at this year’s Grammy awards, it reached number 1 in eight different countries and has gone platinum worldwide. It was also the first ever song to hit 500 million streams on Spotify.
This is not the first time an artist has faced legal ramifications for not clearing a Marvin Gaye sample.
Last year, Gaye’s family successfully sued Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for $7.4 million over their single “Blurred Lines”.
As of writing it is not known how much money Townsend’s family are seeking from the suit and nobody representing Ed Sheeran has commented on it.