The US Supreme Court has rejected a rehearing of a copyright infringement case over Ed Sheeran’s hit Thinking Out Loud.

On Monday (June 16), the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Structured Asset Sales (SAS) – which lost a case in a lower court, where it claimed that Thinking Out Loud violated the copyright on Marvin Gaye’s 1973 song Let’s Get It On.

The case pitting Sheeran against SAS is separate from another lawsuit alleging that Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud copied Gaye’s Let’s Get It On.

That other case, brought by the heirs of Ed Townsend, a co-writer of Let’s Get It On, was settled by a jury in 2023, which sided with Sheeran.

Structured Asset Sales, which was founded and run by David Pullman, and owns a share of Townsend’s songwriter interest in Let’s Get It On, originally sued Sheeran in 2018.

In 2023, a federal court in New York summarily ruled in favor of the singer and songwriter, label Warner Music Group and publisher Sony Music Publishing.

SAS then launched what would become a series of appeals.

In November 2024, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the original district court ruling. SAS’s lawyers petitioned the court for a re-hearing, which the appellate court denied.

SAS was then left only with the option of appealing to the Supreme Court, which it did in March.

Last month, lawyers for Sheeran, his label and his music publisher urged the US Supreme Court to reject a rehearing of the copyright case, arguing that overruling the lower court’s decision could lead to widespread speculative copyright lawsuits.

Sheeran’s lawyers told the Supreme Court, in a brief filed on May 13, that a ruling in favor of Structured Asset Sales “would foment vast uncertainty and encourage rampant speculation” on what parts of a song are copyrighted.

On Monday, the Supreme Court justices turned down Structured Asset Sales’ request to revive the case.Music Business Worldwide