New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Ed Sheeran is currently facing a fierce legal battle against songwriters Ross O'Donoghue and Sami Chokri. The pair allege that Ed Sheeran's hit 2017 single Shape of You pulls certain elements from one of their compositions; Chokri released Oh Why back in 2015. Borrowing ideas in music is nothing new, as long as credit is given to the artist - Sheeran has stood up in court to say he always gives credit where it's due. If you want to find out more about this case, continue reading below.
Shape of You Background
Shape of You was created by Sheeran alongside Johnny McDaid (Snow Patrol) and Steven McCutcheon - professionally known as Steve Mac. The song was released in 2017 and faced comments that there were striking similarities to TLC's hit 1999 single No Scrubs, which prompted Sheeran to add the artist to the track's credits. The track went on to dominate the UK charts for an impressive 14 weeks and was without question the highest-selling song of 2017. In May 2018, Sheeran and his writing team approached the High Court to declare that O'Donoghue and Chokri's copyright had not been infringed; the pair countered this claim, and the case continues.
What Is This Case About?
Andrew Sutcliffe, the barrister for O'Donoghue and Chokri, argues that Sheeran fails to give recognition to songwriters less known. On the flip side, Sheeran argues this by evidencing that he's negotiated with plenty of unknown artists for authorization when writing tracks. The copyrighted part in question is the "Oh I" section, which has an uncanny resemblance to the "Oh Why" part in Chokri and O'Donoghue's song Oh Why.
What Has Ed Sheeran Said?
When talking about claims that he borrows music without recognition, Sheeran presented plenty of examples of part-clearing with non-famous artists including Visiting Hours and Shivers. He followed this by stating "All those examples are not famous artists that we've cleared songs with" - that's all he had to say on the matter.
Sutcliffe makes claims that Sheeran knew of Chokri and O'Donoghue because they have tweeted him, and Sheeran has given them Sami Switch a shoutout at a concert - Sheeran simply says that "This isn't stuff that's true". He goes on to say that the part of the song Oh Why that is alleged to be copied is so small and commonplace, but if he had heard the song, he would have credited the artists. In defense of Sheeran, Ian Mill QC argues that it's improbable that three artists would have consciously or unconsciously copied the song Oh Why.
The trial between Sheeran and the Oh Why writers is still in its early days and is expected to last for three weeks. Is this a simple PR stunt and attempted cash grab or is Ed Sheeran a true music magpie?
If reading about the case has inspired you to learn to play an instrument, online music lessons are a great way to learn new skills or brush up on existing ones.
You may not end up being Ed Sheeran 2.0, but you could have a lot of fun!
,quality(80))
