Ed Sheeran has been accused of being a “magpie” who allegedly “borrows” ideas from other artists for his songs on the first day of a three-week copyright trial over his hit single Shape Of You.
Sheeran, 31, appeared at the high court on Friday for the dispute with two musicians who claim Shape Of You – the UK’s bestselling song of 2017 and the most streamed song in Spotify’s history – plagiarises parts of their earlier song Oh Why.
Musicians Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue allege Shape Of You infringes “particular lines and phrases” of their 2015 composition.
Sheeran and his co-writers, Steven McCutcheon and John 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.
Legal proceedings began in May 2018, with Sheeran and his co-writers asking the high court to declare they had not infringed Chokri and O’Donoghue’s copyright. Sheeran also said his reputation had been sullied by the allegations.
Two months later, Chokri and O’Donoghue issued their own claim for “copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement”.
Both parties anticipated costs in the region of £3m between them.
Andrew Sutcliffe QC, for Chokri and O’Donoghue, said the question at the heart of the case was “how does Ed Sheeran write his music?” and whether he “makes things up as he goes along” during songwriting sessions.
The barrister said: “Or is his songwriting process in truth more nuanced and less spontaneous … involving the collection and development of ideas over time which reference and interpolate other artists. This is the defendants’ case.
“Mr Sheeran is undoubtedly very talented, he is a genius. But he is also a magpie. He borrows ideas and throws them into his songs, sometimes he will acknowledge it but sometimes he won’t.”
Sutcliffe said this “depends on who you are and whether he thinks he can get away with it”.
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’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.
Ian Mill QC, for Sheeran and his two co-writers, questioned the difference between allegedly subconsciously or consciously copying the hook of the song Oh Why.
“How can more than one person subconsciously copy something? That is completely inconceivable,” Mill told the court.
He added that a case of “conscious copying” against Sheeran and his co-authors would require “all three to have known at the time of writing that they were copying Oh Why”.
Sutcliffe said the case was not about “how famous the claimants are, it boils down to that the defendants are not … Shaggy, Coldplay, Rihanna or Jay-Z, if they were they would have been treated in a very different way”.
The current trial before Mr Justice Zacaroli continues, with judgment expected to be reserved until a later date.
