Award-winning musician Ed Sheeran is currently facing a copyright lawsuit for Marvin Gaye’s soulful hit Let’s Get It On in Manhattan federal court.

This isn’t the first time Sheeran has been taken to court over similarities with his songs, as last year he won his high court copyright case when two songwriters said he copied part of one of their songs in his 2017 single Shape of You.

The trial is now in its second week and Ed has reportedly told the courts that he would “quit music” if found guilty.

According to the Daily Mail, when Sheeran was talking to his lawyer Ilene Farkas, he said: “'If that happens, I'm done, I'm stopping.

“I find it really insulting to devote my whole life to being a performer and a songwriter and have someone diminish it.”

Why is Ed Sheeran facing a copyright lawsuit for Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On?

The lawsuit has been made by the successors of the late music producer Ed Townsend, who co-wrote Let’s Get It On with Marvin Gaye in the early 1970s.

They claim that Sheeran’s song Thinking out Loud unlawfully copied the rhythm of Let’s Get It On as well as a four-chord sequence, reports NME.

The accusations also reference “striking similarities” between the two popular songs.

Ed Sheeran sang and played his guitar during copyright lawsuit

Earlier on in the trial, Sheeran was seen playing a few chords on the guitar in front of a jury that is deciding whether his song violates the copyrights of Gaye’s track.

His lawyer Farkas pressed him to explain how he came to write his song Thinking Out Loud a decade ago.

This is when he grabbed his guitar from behind the witness stand and explained that writing a song was second nature to him.

He sang the words “I’m singing out loud” followed by “and then words fall in” as he explained his method of creating music.