The U.S. Supreme Court dismisses the plagiarism lawsuit against Ed Sheeran for "Thinking Out Loud."

The nightmare is over for Ed Sheeran . On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected the latest attempt to press ahead with a copyright lawsuit alleging the pop star copied Marvin Gaye's 1973 classic 'Let's Get It On' in his 2014 track 'Thinking Out Loud' , in what has been a decade-long legal battle.

Structured Asset Sales, owned by investment banker David Pullman, had sued Sheeran, his record label Warner Music, and music publisher Sony Music Publishing, seeking damages, alleging similarities between the two songs. In 2023, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton dismissed the lawsuit, finding the similarities were not sufficient to warrant protection under copyright law.

Pullman's company filed an appeal, but the judges have now refused to grant it the right to continue the proceedings. Structured Asset Sales believed the original case was wrongly dismissed, as, according to their lawyers, the full recording of Gaye's song should have been considered, not just the sheet music registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

However, the courts determined that under the Copyright Act of 1909, this review of the complete recordings was not applicable, limiting the review to an analysis of the sheet music. Thus, Judge Michael Park established that, examining the songs as a whole, there were insufficient substantial similarities between them, as the melodies and lyrics were disparate.

Speaking to the BBC, 'Thinking Out Loud' co-writer Amy Wadge said the sentence was "a huge relief." "It's been a recurring theme in my life for ten years, but yeah, it's done. The absolute truth is, that song changed my life. I didn't have a hit until I was 37, and that was the final one. I could feel like I'd had a hit for a year, and then suddenly I felt like the wolves were swarming around me. It was incredibly terrifying."

However, Pullman notes that the composition scores go one way, and the audio recording goes another, so he intends to pursue this second derivative in federal court in New York, and according to him, "it is quite possible that it will return to the Supreme Court at a later date."

Sheeran has faced other lawsuits since the release of "Thinking Out Loud" in 2014. In 2017, he was initially sued by the estate of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote "Let's Get It On" with Gaye. At the time, his daughter and only surviving direct heir, Kathryn Griffin Townsend, was the plaintiff leading the civil suit.

But in May 2023, a jury found Sheeran not liable for alleged copyright infringement, with a unanimous verdict reached after about three hours of deliberation by seven jurors in a New York courtroom on Thursday. “I feel like the truth was heard and the truth was believed,” Sheeran said after the decision. “It’s good that we can both move on with our lives now; it’s just sad that it had to come to this.”

The British musician later wrote an open letter pointing out the "absurdity" behind many copyright infringement lawsuits today. "I'm obviously very pleased with the outcome of the case, and it looks like I won't have to retire from my day job after all. But at the same time, I'm incredibly frustrated that baseless lawsuits like this are allowed to go to court," his text read.

“We’ve spent the last eight years talking about two songs with radically different lyrics and melodies, and four equally different chords that are used daily by songwriters all over the world. These chords are common elements that were used to create music long before ‘Let’s Get It On’ was written, and that will be used to create music long after we’re all gone. They’re a songwriter’s ‘alphabet,’ our toolkit, and they should be there for all of us to use. No one owns them or the way they’re played, just as no one owns the color blue.”

The 34-year-old artist concluded: "We need songwriters and the music community at large to come together to regain some common sense. These lawsuits must end so the creative process can continue and we can all make music again. At the same time, we absolutely need trusted people, true experts, to help support the copyright protection process."