The Ed Sheeran copyright cases ended in two decisive wins for the singer: a Manhattan jury cleared him in May 2023, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals shut down the companion lawsuit in November 2024. Both cases accused his 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud” of copying Marvin Gaye’s 1973 classic “Let’s Get It On.” Together, the rulings established that common chord progressions and basic rhythmic patterns can’t be monopolized by any single songwriter, even when two songs sound noticeably alike.
Two Lawsuits Over the Same Song
The legal fight actually involved two separate cases filed in the Southern District of New York. The first, Griffin v. Sheeran, was brought in July 2017 by Kathryn Griffin Townsend, Cherrigale Townsend, and Helen McDonald, heirs of Ed Townsend, the co-writer of “Let’s Get It On.”1CourtListener. Griffin v. Sheeran, 1:17-cv-05221 They argued Sheeran had captured the musical heart of the Gaye song to fuel his own success. Their core claim rested on a specific combination of a four-chord progression and a syncopated harmonic rhythm shared between the two tracks.
The second case was filed in 2018 by Structured Asset Sales, LLC (SAS), a company that owned a separate portion of the royalties for “Let’s Get It On.”2Justia. Structured Asset Sales, LLC v. Sheeran The two suits followed very different paths. Griffin went to a full jury trial. SAS was decided on summary judgment after the Griffin verdict came in.
Why the Sheet Music Mattered More Than the Recording
“Let’s Get It On” was copyrighted in 1973, placing it under the Copyright Act of 1909 rather than the modern 1976 Act. That distinction turned out to be decisive. Under the 1909 Act, federal copyright protection covered the musical composition as reflected in the sheet music deposited with the Copyright Office, not the sound recording itself. Sound recordings didn’t receive federal copyright protection until the 1976 Act took effect in 1978.
The trial court granted a pretrial motion limiting the comparison to that 1973 deposit copy and excluding evidence drawn from the Gaye recording.3Scribd. Griffin v. Sheeran Order That was a major blow to the plaintiffs. The deposit copy contained basic notation of melody, chords, and lyrics, but it didn’t capture the groove, vocal inflections, instrumentation, or production choices that make the Gaye recording distinctive. Much of what makes “Let’s Get It On” feel like “Let’s Get It On” lives in the recording rather than on paper. With those elements off the table, the plaintiffs were left arguing about bare chord structures and rhythmic notation.
The Second Circuit later affirmed the approach, holding that the 1909 Act “protects only the musical composition of Let’s Get It On as defined by the sheet music deposited with the Copyright Office in 1973.”2Justia. Structured Asset Sales, LLC v. Sheeran Any future lawsuit involving a pre-1978 song will likely face the same constraint.
Why Common Chord Progressions Aren’t Protectable
Under federal copyright law, a songwriter holds exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, and perform their original work.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 106 – Exclusive Rights in Copyrighted Works But those rights extend only to original creative expression, not to the basic building blocks of music. Individual notes, standard chord progressions, common rhythmic patterns, and conventional song structures belong to no one. A plaintiff alleging infringement has to show that the protected, original elements of two works are substantially similar, not just that both songs use the same chords.
The legal concept at work is the scènes à faire doctrine: certain elements are so standard within a genre that no single creator can own them. In copyright law, these are components that are expected, formulaic, or commonplace, and granting anyone a monopoly over them would harm other creators and the public.5Houston Law Review. Grounding the Scenes a Faire Doctrine Pop music relies on a small musical alphabet. Hundreds of hit songs share the same four-chord backbone. If every shared progression could trigger a lawsuit, the industry would seize up.
The Selection-and-Arrangement Theory
The plaintiffs in the SAS case tried a creative workaround. They conceded that neither the four-chord progression nor the syncopated harmonic rhythm was individually protectable, but argued that the specific combination of the two was an original “selection and arrangement” deserving copyright protection. The theory holds that even unprotectable ingredients can become protectable when assembled in a sufficiently creative way.
The Second Circuit rejected the argument outright, finding that “the combination of a four-chord progression and a syncopated harmonic rhythm” was “too unoriginal for copyright protection.” The court warned that accepting the theory “risks granting a monopoly over a combination of two fundamental musical building blocks” and would “threaten to stifle creativity and undermine the purpose of copyright law.”2Justia. Structured Asset Sales, LLC v. Sheeran Stacking two generic elements together doesn’t magically make them original.
Sheeran’s Guitar on the Witness Stand
During the Griffin trial, Sheeran took the witness stand and did something federal courtrooms rarely see: he grabbed an acoustic guitar from behind the witness stand and played. He performed fragments of “Thinking Out Loud” and other well-known songs to demonstrate that many hits share the same underlying chord sequences without copying each other. The performance was technical rather than theatrical, aimed at showing the jury how ordinary the disputed musical elements really are.
Sheeran and his co-writer, Amy Wadge, also testified about the song’s origin. They described composing “Thinking Out Loud” during a single spontaneous writing session at Sheeran’s home, with the melody emerging naturally from their interaction that day. This supported the defense of independent creation: any overlap with “Let’s Get It On” was a byproduct of working within the standard conventions of pop songwriting rather than any intentional borrowing. The defense never denied that the two songs shared musical traits. It argued those traits weren’t the kind of thing anyone could own.
The May 2023 Jury Verdict
On May 4, 2023, the jury in Manhattan reached a unanimous verdict: Sheeran had independently created “Thinking Out Loud” and did not infringe the copyright in “Let’s Get It On.”2Justia. Structured Asset Sales, LLC v. Sheeran The jurors concluded that the similarities between the songs reflected shared conventions of the genre rather than theft. The court dismissed the claims with prejudice, meaning the Griffin plaintiffs are permanently barred from bringing the same lawsuit again.
Outside the courthouse, Sheeran told reporters he was “obviously very happy with the outcome” but “unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all.” The frustration reflected a broader anxiety in the songwriting community: even when you win, a multi-year copyright lawsuit costs enormous amounts of time, money, and creative energy.
The Second Circuit Closes the Door in 2024
The Griffin verdict didn’t automatically resolve the SAS case because SAS wasn’t a party to that trial. Under basic procedural rules, a judgment between one set of parties doesn’t bind strangers to the lawsuit. If the Griffin plaintiffs had won, SAS could have shared in the spoils as a co-owner of the copyright. But Sheeran’s victory didn’t help him directly against SAS.2Justia. Structured Asset Sales, LLC v. Sheeran
Sheeran’s legal team had moved for summary judgment in SAS back in April 2021. The district court initially denied the motion, but after the Griffin jury came back, the judge reconsidered and granted summary judgment for Sheeran. SAS appealed. On November 1, 2024, the Second Circuit affirmed, holding that “no reasonable jury could find the two songs substantially similar as a whole” given their different melodies and lyrics.2Justia. Structured Asset Sales, LLC v. Sheeran The appellate court also excluded expert testimony about musical elements not found in the 1973 deposit copy, cementing the deposit-copy limitation as binding precedent in the Second Circuit.
The Blurred Lines Backdrop
The Sheeran cases didn’t arrive in a vacuum. In 2015, a jury found that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams had infringed the copyright in Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” by copying elements of it into “Blurred Lines.” The damages were staggering: roughly $5.3 million plus a running royalty of 50% of future songwriter and publishing revenues.6Justia. Williams v. Gaye The Ninth Circuit upheld the verdict in 2018.
The dissent in that case warned that the majority had allowed the Gaye estate to “copyright a musical style” and set “a dangerous precedent that strikes a devastating blow to future musicians and composers everywhere.”6Justia. Williams v. Gaye That prediction largely came true. Blurred Lines opened the floodgates to music copyright claims based on feel, groove, and vibe rather than specific melodic copying. The Sheeran lawsuits were a direct product of that environment, and the Sheeran verdicts pushed the pendulum back.
What the Sheeran Cases Changed
The combined effect of the Griffin jury verdict and the Second Circuit’s 2024 SAS ruling gives defendants in music copyright cases stronger footing than they’ve had since Blurred Lines. The practical takeaways are concrete:
- For any song copyrighted before 1978, the scope of protection is defined by the sheet music filed with the Copyright Office, not the recording. Elements like groove, production, and vocal style that exist only in the recording can’t support an infringement claim.
- Common chord progressions and standard rhythmic patterns are unprotectable, and combining two unprotectable elements doesn’t make them protectable. The selection-and-arrangement theory has clear limits.
- Independent creation remains a viable defense. A plausible account of how a song was written can defeat an infringement claim even when similarities are real and obvious.
- Melody and lyrics still carry the most weight. The Second Circuit found no reasonable jury could find substantial similarity when the melodies and lyrics of the two songs differed, regardless of shared harmonic structure.
None of this means music copyright claims are dead. A plaintiff who can point to a copied melody, a lifted lyric, or evidence that the defendant actually heard the earlier work still has a viable case. What the Sheeran rulings did is draw a clearer line between inspiration and infringement, making it harder to claim ownership over the shared language of pop music.