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New York (AFP) \u2013 British pop phenom Ed Sheeran<\/strong><\/a> expressed joy and relief Thursday after a US jury found he did not plagiarize Marvin Gaye<\/strong><\/a>\u2018s \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On\u201d in composing his hit \u201cThinking Out Loud,\u201d and called the ruling good news for creative freedom.<\/p>\n The English musician stood and hugged his team inside a Manhattan federal courtroom after jurors ruled that he had \u201cindependently\u201d created his 2014 song.<\/p>\n Outside, he told reporters he was \u201cvery happy\u201d but \u201cunbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this\u201d even make it to trial.<\/p>\n The civil lawsuit was filed by heirs of Gaye co-writer Ed Townsend<\/strong>, who alleged that harmonic progressions and rhythmic elements of Sheeran\u2019s song were lifted without permission from the classic made famous by Gaye.<\/p>\n The heirs sought a share of the profits from Sheeran\u2019s hit tune.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the jury had decided this matter the other way, we might as well say goodbye to the creative freedom of songwriters,\u201d Sheeran told reporters outside the court.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is devastating and also insulting to be accused of stealing other people\u2019s songs when we put so much into our livelihoods,\u201d he added. \u201cI am just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake.\u201d<\/p>\n The jurors spent some three hours deliberating whether Sheeran\u2019s song and Gaye\u2019s classic are substantially similar and if their common elements are protected by copyright law.<\/p>\n Sheeran, 32, spent days testifying with guitar in hand, playing demos for the court to prove the 1-3-4-5 chord progression that was in question is a basic building block of pop music that can\u2019t be owned.<\/p>\n The English musician testified that he writes most of his songs in a day, and noted that he co-wrote \u201cThinking Out Loud\u201d with singer-songwriter Amy Wadge, a regular creative collaborator.<\/p>\n The pair wrote \u201cThinking Out Loud\u201d at Sheeran\u2019s home in February 2014, he said.<\/p>\n A musicologist retained by the defense told the court that the four-chord sequence in question was used in a number of songs before Gaye\u2019s hit came out in 1973.<\/p>\n \u201cThese chords are common building blocks,\u201d Sheeran said Thursday. \u201cThey are a songwriter\u2019s \u2018alphabet\u2019, our tool kit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo one owns them, or the way they are played, in the same way nobody owns the color blue.\u201d<\/p>\n Plaintiff Kathryn Townsend Griffin left court and breezed by reporters smoking what appeared to be a cigarillo, saying only: \u201cGod is good all the time, all the time God is good.\u201d<\/p>\n Industry members closely followed the copyright lawsuit as some feared it could chill songwriters\u2019 creativity and open the door to legal challenges elsewhere.<\/p>\n It was the second trial in a year for Sheeran, who successfully testified at a London court last April in a case centered around his song \u201cShape Of You,\u201d saying that the lawsuit was emblematic of copyright litigation going too far.\u00a0<\/p>\n The judge also ruled in his favor in that case.<\/p>\n Sheeran\u2019s \u201cThinking Out Loud\u201d shot up America\u2019s Billboard Hot 100 charts when it was released, and won Sheeran a Song of the Year prize at the Grammys in 2016.<\/p>\n