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27th April 2023
08:38am BST
The woman accusing Ed Sheeran of ripping off Marvin Gaye’s classic 1973 track Let’s Get It On dramatically collapsed in court during a cross-examination.
Kathyrn Townsend Griffin, the daughter of Ed Townsend who co-wrote the track with Gaye, is accusing the British musician of replicating the song in his 2014 single Thinking Out Loud.
She was carried out on a stretcher after she collapsed while a music expert was being cross-examined during the case.
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.
Townsend’s heirs claim the track copies the "heart" of Let's Get It On, including the harmony, melody and rhythm, in a copyright infringement lawsuit.
They also say 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’.
Townsend’s family lawyer has claimed he has a ‘smoking gun’ as the high-profile case kicked off this week.
Ben Crump said that he could pinpoint a moment that clearly highlighted the similarities between the two tracks in court.
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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