(CelebrityAccess) – US district judge Louis Stanton has ruled that a jury will decide the outcome of a plagiarism lawsuit against Ed Sheeran over his No. 1 single “Thinking Out Loud.”
The lawsuit, which alleges that Sheeran copied portions of Marvin Gaye’s 1973 hit “Let’s Get It On,” was launched against the singer, Sony/ATV and Atlantic Records by the estate of producer Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the song
While Sheeran and his team have denied the claims, judge Stanton––who is also overseeing a separate $100 million lawsuit over the same song launched by Structured Asset Sales which owns part of the copyright of “Let’s Get It On”–– said that he found “substantial similarities between several of the two works’ musical elements”.
“Thinking Out Loud” has spent 118 weeks in the Top 100.
The ruling arrives less than a month after a California judge ruled against the writers of “Blurred Lines” in a case involving copying infringement of another one of Gaye’s song.