Ed Sheeran has denied “borrowing” ideas from unknown songwriters without credit.
The musician, 31, is in the high court facing accusations of copying parts of his 2017 hit Shape of You from Oh Why, a 2015 song written by Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue and performed by Chokri under the alias Sami Switch.
Andrew Sutcliffe QC, barrister for the pair, claimed that Sheeran treated lesser-known songwriters differently from his famous peers such as Rihanna, Jay-Z and Coldplay, and alleged that the songwriting process for Shape of You involved collecting ideas rather than spontaneous composition.
Sheeran denied both suggestions. “I have always tried to be completely fair in crediting anyone who makes any contribution to any song I write,” he told the court. “I do refer to other works on occasion when I write, as do many songwriters. If there is a reference to another work, I notify my team so that steps can be taken to obtain clearance.
“I have been as scrupulous as I possibly can and have even given credits to people who I believe may have been no more than a mere influence for a songwriting element. This is because I want to treat other songwriters fairly.”
Sheeran has already given the writers behind TLC’s 90s hit No Scrubs a credit on Shape of You after comparisons were made between the two songs.
Sheeran has previously said he wrote Shape of You in 90 minutes. This was not unusual for him, he told the court, referencing a recent week-long songwriting session with the National’s Aaron Dessner that produced 25 songs. “There is no pre-mediated thought process, I simply make things up as I go along - and if it sounds good, I keep it.
“I think of them as sort of ‘excitement bottles’ - if a song is working, the excitement pushes it to the point where it’s finished; if it’s not, then I’ll leave it and move on to something else.”
In May 2018, Sheeran and his cowriters John McDaid (of Snow Patrol), Kandi Burruss, Kevin Briggs, Steven McCutcheon and Tameka Cottle asked the high court to declare that they had not infringed Chokri and O’Donoghue’s copyright.
The pair issued a counter claim for copyright infringement, claiming that Shape of You infringes “particular lines and phrases” of their song.
Sheeran, McCutcheon (known as Steve Mac) and McDaid have been barred by music licensing body PRS for Music from collecting an estimated £20m in royalties from the performances or broadcasts of Shape of You.
Sheeran’s lawyers previously told the high court that the singer and his co-writers have no recollection of having heard the song Oh Why before the legal battle and “vehemently deny” the allegations of copying.
On Friday, Sutcliffe claimed that Sheeran “borrows ideas and throws them into his songs, sometimes he will acknowledge it but sometimes he won’t”.
Sheeran denied this, saying that “if Mr Sutcliffe would have done his research”, he would have found he had cleared parts of songs with “lots” of unknown composers, including a song that sampled an “unknown composer” from the score to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Sheeran denied Sutcliffe’s allegations that he must have been aware of Chokri because they appeared on the YouTube channel SBTV around the same time, they allegedly had mutual friends, Chokri said he tweeted at Sheeran asking him to listen to his music, and Sheeran allegedly shouted Chokri’s name at a performance.
Sheeran said he received “hundreds of thousands of tweets every single day” and stated that he doesn’t do on-stage shoutouts.
Sheeran admitted to settling a previous copyright case about his song Photograph on the advice of his lawyers because it was a “nuisance” and “more trouble than it was worth”.
Songwriters Thomas Leonard and Martin Harrington sued Sheeran for $20m for copyright infringement, alleging similarities between Sheeran’s hit and their song Amazing, performed by X Factor winner Matt Cardle.
Sheeran paid the pair $5m and gave them 35% of his gross publishing revenue – shares they have since returned. He told the high court today that the similarities were a coincidence and that he did not copy the song.
He said it was the first time he had faced such a claim and that he felt “bruised” by the experience.
“Even though I felt that I had done nothing wrong, we decided to settle the case because of the money and time it would take to fight it. However, that left me with a very bad feeling afterwards. The decision to settle felt morally weird given that we were innocent of the allegations made. It made me feel like I did not want to play the song any more.”
The case continues. Sheeran is expected to resume giving evidence tomorrow (8 March).
