Woman accusing Ed Sheeran of ripping off Marvin Gaye collpses in court

The daughter of the songwriter who has launched a copyright trial against Ed Sheeran has collapsed in court.

Kathyrn Townsend Griffin, who has accused the 32-year-old British singer of ripping off Marvin Gaye’s classic 1973 track Let’s Get It On in his 2014 single Thinking Out Loud, was carried off in a stretcher.

The medical incident happened on Wednesday while a music expert was being cross-examined with Townsend Grffin, the daughter of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the track with Gaye, assisted by several people in the Manhattan court.

Her lawyer did not disclose the reason for her fall but said that Townsend Griffin had a pre-existing medical condition.

Sheeran, who denies the claim, appeared in court for the first time on Tuesday and said would have been an ‘idiot’ to copy the soul track, adding that many pop songs are ‘built on building blocks’ of other work.

Thinking Out Loud dominated charts when it was released 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 to Reuters, the lawsuit also notes that the Shape Of You singer has performed the two songs in a medley in the past and that the two songs transitioned from one to the other ‘seamlessly’. 

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, the A Team chart-topper said according to People: ‘​​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 a week and comes just over a year after Sheeran won a trial in London in a separate copyright case involving his song Shape Of You. 

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