Ed Sheeran sings in court at ‘Shape of You’ copyright trial

Ed Sheeran, a British singer-songwriter, hummed and sang in court on Tuesday; as he testified in a copyright case involving his 2017 mega-hit “Shape Of You.” The chart-topper is embroiled in a legal battle with grime singer Sami Switch and music producer Ross O’Donoghue. They claim that ‘Shape of You’ infringes on “particular lines and phrases” from their 2015 song “Oh Why.”

“If you put them all in the same key, they’ll sound the same,” he explained. Sheeran denies hearing Mr. Chokri’s music and dismisses the possibility that it was played to him by pals before he penned Shape of You in October 2016. His cheerful pop song was the best-selling single of 2017 and is still the most-played song on Spotify. However, since Mr. Chokri and his co-writer Ross O’Donoghue claimed copyright infringement in 2018, Sheeran’s royalties believed to be worth around £20 million have been frozen.

 Sheeran’s royalties around £20 million have been frozen

As part of their case, the pair’s lawyers played court extracts from the Shape of You recording sessions. Ed Sheeran was overheard remarking that the melody for “oh I” needs to be changed because it was “a little near to the bone” in one session. Sheeran sang the ‘Oh I’ hook repeatedly throughout his second day of questioning by Chokri and O’Donoghue’s lawyer Andrew Sutcliffe. To demonstrate how melodies can sound identical, he sang lines from songs like Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” in the same key.

Sheeran frequently addressed the High Court in London about the similarities between the ‘Oh Why’ and ‘Oh I’ hooks when asked about them. “They’re both pentatonic scales and they both use vowels,” he said. Sutcliffe, who referred to Sheeran as “a magpie” at the show’s start on Friday; interrogated him extensively on the song’s writing in October 2016. 

“If I had heard ‘Oh Why’ at the time and had referenced it; I would have taken steps to clear it,” Sheeran said in his witness statement.  “It sounds like you were singing `Oh Why`,” Sutcliffe told Sheeran, who replied; “I was singing ‘Oh I’.” “The lyric is ‘Oh I, I`m in love with your body’. The lyric ‘Oh Why, I`m in love with your body’ does not make sense.”

When a small bit of unreleased Sheeran music was played, he became irritated for a brief moment. The improper folder on McCutcheon’s laptop had been mistakenly opened, according to the court. 

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