Ed Sheeran, who is being sued by the Ed Townsend estate over alleged copyright infringement, spoke up on the case in an interview with Apple Music, which was resurfaced by Rolling Stone. Sheeran, who has already had to miss his grandmother’s funeral due to the trial and said he would quit music entirely if found guilty, again expressed his frustrations with the process, condemning the people who brought the case.
“The thing with these cases, it’s not usually songwriters that are suing songwriters,” he said. “I feel like in the songwriting community, everyone sort of knows that there’s four chords primarily that are used and there’s eight notes. And we work with what we’ve got, with doing that.”
Townsend’s heirs sued Sheeran in 2017 over alleged “striking similarities” between Ed’s hit “Thinking Out Loud” and the 1973 Marvin Gaye classic “Let’s Get It On.” However, Sheeran denied that “Let’s Get It On” was even a consideration. Rolling Stone notes that after a similar suit against Robin Thicke over another Gaye classic, the landscape changed, creating a climate wherein many more lawsuits are being issued for copyright infringement over the slightest similarities. This has prompted stars to seek clearances even when there are only superficial connections between songs.
“I had a song that I wrote for Keith Urban and it sort of sounded like a Coldplay song,” Ed himself admitted. “So I emailed Chris Martin and I said, ‘This sounds like your tune. Can we clear it?’ And he went, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. No.’ And on the song I made sure they put, ‘I think it sounds like “Everglow,” Coldplay.’ But he was just like, ‘Nah, I know how songs are written. And I know you didn’t go into the studio and go, I want to write this.’”
Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.