Ed Sheeran

The songwriter slammed what he described as a "culture" of baseless lawsuits intended to squeeze money out of artists eager to avoid the expense of a trial.

You may click on “Your Choices” below to learn about and use cookie management tools to limit use of cookies when you visit NPR’s sites. If you click “Agree and Continue” below, you acknowledge that your cookie choices in those tools will be respected and that you otherwise agree to the use of cookies on NPR’s sites. NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites (together, “cookies”) to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic.

British singer 'neither deliberately nor subconsciously' copied a phrase from song by Sami Chokri, judge says.

There is an impact on both us and the wider circle of songwriters everywhere.” Sheeran also said his reputation had been sullied by the allegations. This really does have to end.” They said the case had come at a cost to “creativity” and their mental health. The judge said that while there were “similarities” between the one-bar phrase that repeats the words “Oh why” in Chokri’s song and the repetition of “Oh I” in Sheeran’s, such similarities are “only a starting point” for a copyright infringement claim, and there are also “significant differences” between the phrases in the songs. “There are only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music and coincidences are bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released a day on Spotify, that is 22m songs a year, and there are only 12 notes that are available.”

The singer “neither deliberately, nor subconsciously” stole from another songwriter when writing his 2017 hit, a British judge ruled.

But Mr. Chokri, giving evidence, claimed that he knew Mr. Sheeran personally and that he had once met him at a branch of Nando’s, a chicken restaurant. He borrows ideas and throws them into his songs.” Mr. Sutcliffe claimed that Mr. Sheeran only sometimes credited the songwriters that he borrowed from. Their claim arose after Mr. Chokri and a co-author notified Britain’s Performing Rights Society, a body that pays song royalties, that they should be credited as songwriters on “Shape of You.” The society then suspended all payments to Mr. Sheeran and his co-writers. “Coincidences are bound to happen if 60,000 songs are released every day on Spotify.” Mr. Sheeran was in court throughout, and sang from the witness stand while giving evidence. During the hearing, Mr. Chorki’s legal team tried to portray Mr. Sheeran as a habitual plagiarist. At the case’s heart was a tiny portion of “Shape of You,” which topped charts worldwide and is one of the most streamed songs on Spotify with over three billion plays. Shortly after the judgment, Mr. Sheeran posted a clip on Instagram in which he said that “claims like this are way too common now.” “There were “only so many notes, and very few chords used in pop music,” he added. A lawyer for Mr. Sheeran told the court that Mr. Chokri’s song had received only 12,914 plays on YouTube in the two years following its release, and had been played only twice on British radio, meaning few people had a chance to hear it. Soon after Mr. Sheeran took action, Mr. Chokri and his co-author introduced their own legal claim, accusing Mr. Sheeran of copyright infringement. At one point in the trial, Mr. Sheeran’s legal team accidentally played one of his unreleased songs prompting Mr. Sheeran, shocked, to ask his legal team, “How did you get that?” according to a BBC News report. Justice Zacaroli, the judge overseeing the case, said “Mr. Sheeran neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied” the track “Oh Why,” by the British songwriter Sami Chokri.

In his ruling, the judge concluded that Sheeran “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied a phrase from “Oh Why” when writing “Shape of You,” as Sheeran ...

I’m a son. I’m a husband. I’m a father.