With his ongoing trial for a copyright infringement lawsuit, Ed Sheeran finds himself in a plagiarism limbo as his "Shape of You" is accused of copying elements of another song.
Songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O'Donoghue filed a case in 2018 claiming that their 2015 song "Oh Why" was infringed by Ed Sheeran's 2017 Grammy-winning song "Shape of You."
These allegations, however, were denied by "Shape of You" songwriters Steven McCutcheon, widely known as Steve Mac, and John McDaid.
Ed Sheeran Plagiarism Trial Update
On the second day of the hearing, Ed Sheeran's camp presented evidence using the British superstar himself.
Press Association (via Billboard) reported that the "Thinking Out Loud" hitmaker sang a snippet of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good," his 2013 single "I See Fire," and the "Oh I, Oh I, Oh I" part of the accused song.
Sheeran sang these songs to illustrate to the court that the melody he was accused of infringing is a common "minor pentatonic pattern."
"If you put them all in the same key, they'll sound the same," he explains as he claimed to have never heard of the song until Chokri and O'Donoghue came forward.
Ed Sheeran's lawyers accidentally played a short snippet of an unreleased Sheeran song during the hearing while the singer was being grilled on how "Shape of You" was written, eliciting a baffled response from the song's creator.
The British superstar revealed that the mistakenly played song is something he wrote last January 2022. Ed was informed that his lawyers accidentally opened the wrong folder on McCutcheon's laptop.
As to whether it is a new song for an upcoming album or single, fans have yet to wait for the official release.
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Ed Sheeran's 'Shape of You'
The song being questioned on Ed Sheeran's new trial is his 2017 Grammy-winning hit "Shape of You."
Sheeran released "Shape of You" in 2017 as the single for "Divide," his third studio album.
The track went to top various music charts worldwide, including France, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom. It also held the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks.
As of writing, "Shape of You" amassed 2.2 billion streams per MRC data. Last December, it became the first song on Spotify to reach three billion streams.
The singer also admitted that he had initially envisioned the track for Rihanna or Little Mix, as it had clashed with his other lead single for "Divide," "Castle on the Hill." He, later on, confessed that he was "subsequently wrong."
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