Ed Sheeran’s co-writer Amy Wadge has given her thoughts on the ‘Thinking Out Loud’ copyright trial coming to a close.
After a decade-long legal battle, in which Ed Sheeran was accused by several parties of plagiarising the 1973 Marvin Gaye hit ‘Let’s Get It On’, the US courts ruled in Sheeran’s favour.
The first claim came from the family of American singer-songwriter Ed Townsend, who co-wrote ‘Let’s Get It On’, in 2014, accusing both Sheeran and Wadge of plagiarism, seeking £73 million in damages. The family’s case was based on the two songs having a similar chord pattern, and while Sheeran’s team acknowledged that was the case, they argued that these chords were “building blocks” for pop music, and many songs have used the same syncopated chord pattern long before Gaye’s 1973 record. In 2023, a New York court ruled in Sheeran’s favour, the judge asserting that ‘Thinking Out Loud’ was “independently created”. To celebrate the ruling, both Wadge and Sheeran got matching tattoos of the quote.
Speaking to reporters about the case, and his decision to fight rather than to settle, Sheeran said: “I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake.”
A second lawsuit arose in 2018, this time initiated by Structured Asset Sales (SAS), another partial co-owner of Gaye’s royalties from ‘Let’s Get It On’, founded and run by investment banker David Pullman. They sued both Wadge and Sheeran separately, but the claims were quickly dismissed in court, leading to a series of appeals launched by SAS. They appealed to the Supreme Court in March, but the case was dismissed this Monday (16 June), with the same reasoning used in the 2018 verdict: The chords in Gaye’s record are too commonplace in pop to have legal protection.
Speaking to the New York-based Second US Circuit Court of Appeals, judge Michael Park commented: “No reasonable jury could find that the two songs, taken as a whole, are substantially similar in light of their dissimilar melodies and lyrics.”
In an interview with BBC Radio 4, Amy Wadge weighs in on the verdict: “The absolute truth is that song changed my life. I didn’t have a hit until I was 37 and that was the one.
“I was able to feel like I’d had a hit for a year and then all of a sudden it felt like the wolves were surrounding.
“It was incredibly frightening.”
She goes on to explain: “It was certainly a financial threat, but there was also… this huge existential threat of what it meant for the world of songwriting I always felt the weight of that.
“People would tell me that everyone was looking at this case and I knew that had [SAS] been successful it really would have caused a huge issue for creativity in general. It was a big responsibility.”
Wadge and Sheeran haven’t had the chance to talk about the case yet, as Sheeran is currently on tour, though she says “I’m quite sure at some point we’ll be able to sit down and say, ‘Thank goodness’.”
For MXDWN’s coverage about Ed Sheeran’s upcoming shows in Ipswich, click here.
