Ed Sheeran Copyright Trial Put on Hold for “Stairway to Heaven” Decision

Sam Sodomsky
A case over similarities between Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” and Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” is delayed until Led Zeppelin’s outcome has been decided

In 2016, the family of Ed Townsend, the co-writer of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” filed a lawsuit accusing Ed Sheeran of plagiarizing elements of “Let’s Get It On” for his 2014 song “Thinking Out Loud.” Earlier this week, on July 2, Manhattan District Judge Louis Stanton vacated a trial date in September to wait for results in a similar copyright case involving Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” as the BBC and Rolling Stone report (via Law360). “Take the summer off,” Judge Stanton joked about the delay, noting that if the Zeppelin case goes to the Supreme Court, it may wait until 2020. Pitchfork has reached out to representatives for comment.

The suit against Sheeran claims that he plagiarized “the melody, rhythms, harmonies, drums, bass line, backing chorus, tempo, syncopation and looping” from Gaye’s hit. Led Zeppelin’s ongoing case involves similarities between “Stairway to Heaven” and a 1968 instrumental composition titled “Taurus” by the band Spirit.

Read “What Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway’ Trial Says About Copyright’s Increasingly Blurred Lines.”

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Originally Appeared on Pitchfork