Ed sued for hit’s sheer number of similarities

$100m claim for ‘ripping off’ song by Marvin Gaye

SINGER Ed Sheeran is being sued for $100million after being accused of ripping off parts of Marvin Gaye’s hit Let’s Get It On.

In papers filed in New York, owners of the Motown legend’s work claim Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud has the “same melody, rhythms, harmonies, drums, bassline, backing chorus, tempo, syncopation and looping”.

Structured Asset Sales are demanding he pays £76.4million for the alleged infringement.

Double Grammy-winning Thinking Out Loud was voted the world’s most popular wedding first dance song, and the video has been viewed on YouTube more than 2.3 billion times.

The album X, which features the tune, sold more than 15 million copies. Gaye, who was shot dead by his father in 1984, aged 44, wrote Let’s Get It On with Edward Townsend in 1973.

Townsend died in 2003 but SAS bought a third of the copyright. Sheeran, 27, has already faced legal action over his STARS Marvin Gaye and Ed Sheeran song after Townsend’s heirs also claimed it copied Let’s Get It On. He denied the claim. Other defendants listed in the latest action include Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the Atlantic record label and Amy Padge, who co-wrote Thinking Out Loud. Sheeran’s legal team have battled a number of claims against his work. He last year agreed a deal to end a £14million copyright lawsuit brought by two songwriters who alleged that his hit Photograph was a “verbatim, notefor-note copying” of their song Amazing. Sheeran has yet to respond to the latest copyright lawsuit.