Ed Sheeran’s royalties have been suspended by the court after his massive hit ‘Shape of You’ was hit with a copyright case.
Copyright is the legal right that protects the use of your work. It applies automatically upon creation and it allows you to protect your work and stops other people from using it without your permission. For music and sound recordings copyright applies for 70 years from when it was first published.
The number 1 song of 2017 according to Billboard Hot 100 now faces a copyright case applied by a relatively unknown artist Sam Chokri who goes by the stage name of Sami Switch. Chokri is claiming that the hit song ‘Shape of you’ copies a section of the chorus of his song ‘Oh Why’ a track from 2015. As well as this he is claiming that Ed Sheeran is “consciously or subconsciously in the habit of appropriating the compositional skill and labour of other songwriters.
The Section in claim is the ascending ‘Oh-I-Oh-I-Oh-I-Oh-I’ in ‘Shape of You’ which has a similar ascending pattern and sound to a section of Sam Chokri’s chorus ‘Oh-Why-Oh-why-Oh-why’.
Ed Sheeran has been in similar disputes with possible breaches of copyright. These cases have resulted in out of court settlements and the granting of writing credits. Some examples of this is with the same song ‘Shape of you’ sharing similarities with the 90s hit ‘No Scrub’ by TLC where writing credits were given to Kandi Burress, Tamkea Cottle and Kevin ‘She’kspere’ Briggs. Other settlements include Liam Payne’s ‘Strip that Down’ where writing credits were given to Shaggy as a result of taking part of the melody from the hit song ‘It wasn’t me’ and Ed Sheeran’s song ‘Photograph’ where he apparently copied note for note parts of Matt Cardle’s song ‘Amazing’. Which is presenting the idea that Ed Sheeran is habitually taking elements from other artist’s songs.
Sam Chokri has also alleged that he sent this track to people within Ed Sheeran’s Circle in an attempt to work with him. Ed Sheeran claims that Chokri is blocking his revenue streams and damaging his reputation.
Ed Sheeran is also involved in a current case regarding the song ‘let’s get it on’ for allegedly infringing copyright and judgement has been postponed until 2020 as the judge is waiting for a decision from the Led Zeppelin Case.
Written by Owen White, Third Year Law Student at Solent University
