Ed Sheeran recently won his court case over the copyright to his hit song “Shape of You.”
According to E! News, a judge ruled on April 6 that Sheeran, along with co-authors Steven McCutcheon and John McDaid, “neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied” elements from the track, “Oh Why,” written by Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue, and released in 2015.
The “Bad Habits” singer shared his thoughts on the “damaging” and “baseless” lawsuit in a new video shared on Instagram.
“Me, Johnny and Steve have made a joint statement that will be press released on the outcome of this case, but I wanted to make a small video to talk about it a bit because I’ve not really been able to say anything whilst it’s been going on,” he said. “Whilst we’re obviously happy with the result, I feel like claims like this [are] way too common now.”
“And have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court,” he added. “Even if there’s no basis for the claim.”
“It’s really damaging to the songwriting industry,” the singer/songwriter continued. “There’s only so many nights and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotify. That’s 22 million songs a year and there’s only 12 notes that are available.”
Ed added that he didn’t “want to take anything away from the pain and hurt suffered from both sides of this case but I just want to say I’m not an entity. I’m not a corporation. I’m a human being. I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a son.”
“Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience,” he concluded. “And I hope that this ruling means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided. This really does have to end. Me, Johnny and Steve are very grateful for all the support sent to us by fellow songwriters over the last few weeks. Hopefully we can all get back to writing songs rather than having to prove that we can write them.”
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