was seen being ushered into a Manhattan court by a security guard on Wednesday.
The Grammy-winner, 32, wore another smart navy suit when arriving for day two of his latest legal battle, which centres on his iconic 2015 track Thinking Out Loud and Marvin Gaye’s hit, Let’s Get It On.
Sheeran is .
On Tuesday, dad-of-two Sheeran said he would have been an ‘idiot’ to copy the 1973 hit, and added that many pop songs are ‘built on building blocks’ of other work.
R&B and soul singer Gaye, who died in 1984, collaborated with songwriter Ed Townsend, who also died in 2003, to write his number one song, released in 1973.
Sheeran’s song Thinking Out Loud dominated charts when it was released in 2015, but just two years later, Townsend’s heirs filed a lawsuit against Sheeran for copyright infringement, claiming that Thinking Out Loud copied the ‘heart’ of Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, including the harmony, melody and rhythm.
According , the lawsuit also notes that Sheeran has performed the two songs in a medley in the past and that the two songs transitioned from one to the other ‘seamlessly’.
However, Sheeran argued that any similarities heard in the songs are likely basic music ‘building blocks’ that are ineligible for copyright protection.
This week, Townsend’s family lawyer claimed he had a ‘smoking gun’ as the high-profile case kicked off.
Ben Crump said that he could pinpoint a moment that clearly highlighted the similarities between the two tracks in court.
Also in his opening statement, Crump claimed that during a concert Sheeran played the two tunes back-to-back in a medley and the moment could be relied on to fight the family’s case.
In response, Sheeran said he’d be an ‘idiot’ to do what he’s being accused of.
‘If I’d done what you’re accusing me of doing, I’d be an idiot to stand on stage in front of 20,000 people [and do that],’ he told the lawyer, according to .
‘It is my belief that most pop songs are built on building blocks that have been freely available for 100s of years.’
The trial is expected to last all week.
