Ed Sheeran has revealed that he now films every recording session he takes in part in, after his scrapes with copyright law over the last few years.
The singer songwriter was interviewed by ITV News on the top deck of a London tourist bus before he performed a ‘pop up’ gig outside King’s Cross.
“I’ve filmed everything since the first lawsuit claim, which was 2015,” he explained. “Just so if ever that happens again, I’m like ‘here’s the proof that I wrote it’. It’s actually great because I’ve (now) got this hard drive of every single song that has become successful, the writing process of it.”
Sheeran has had a few close calls regarding copyright over the last decade. In 2017 he had to settle out of court when it was alleged that his song Photograph infringed the copyright of Amazing, a song released by X Factor winner Matt Cardle.
Since then Sheeran has had two court victories over plagiarism claims. In 2022 he won a case taken out against him, alleging that his 2017 Number One Shape Of You cribbed from Oh Why, a 2015 song by grime artist Sami Chokri.
The following year he won again in a case that alleged that his 2014 hit Thinking Out Loud was too close for comfort to Marvin Gaye’s immortal Let’s Get It On.
Of course, filming recording sessions wouldn’t necessarily protect him from claims of unknowing plagiarism - after all, few songwriters deliberately copy others’ work. But it may provide evidence of his honest intentions.
Sheeran released a new single last week. The much-trailed Azizam looks likely to be Number One come Friday, but not everyone is happy. One TikTok critic has described his oeuvre as “songs (that) are good in the way that heroin is good for people.” And he wasn’t suggesting that the fact they made listeners feel warm and happy and were really catchy was a good thing.
A fellow who calls himself ‘Zachary The Swiftologist’ said Azizam was “soulless” and argued “his songs are good in the way that heroin is good for people. It’s addictive in a way that’s not supposed to be good for the human brain.”
“Shivers, Bad Habits and Shape of You are all the same song (as Azizam) and they’re all so f***ing annoying. There has been no evolution from 2016. I feel like I’m going crazy. I’ll never get these two minutes of my life back,” he concluded. “He’s terrorising the music industry, we should punish him.”
Being the remorselessly cheery soul that he seems to be, Sheeran merely responded to Zachary with a simple “Lol”.
