Testimony wrapped up in the Ed Sheeran copyright infringement trial at the end of the court day Wednesday, as the judge sent the Manhattan jury into deliberations with a pointed admonition: “Independent creation is a complete defense, no matter how similar that song is.”
U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton’s instructions may have left a high bar in the jury’s minds for just how much evidence the plaintiffs’ attorneys needed to have established to prove that Sheeran and his co-writer actually copied Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” when they wrote the pop hit “Thinking Out Loud.”
According to Insider, Stanton told jurors that the lawyers