Ed Sheeran took to the stand for the first time in his copyright trial for his hit song “Thinking Out Loud.” The heirs of Ed Townsend, who cowrote Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” are suing Sheeran, alleging that his 2014 song has “striking similarities” to Gaye’s classic.
Appearing in a Manhattan federal courtroom, Sheeran testified that he did not copy from Gaye’s song and claimed that most pop songs are built on building blocks that have been freely available for hundreds of years. He also pointed out that other popular songs share the same progressions.
