English singer and songwriter Ed Sheeran was engaged in a legal case for his very famous song ‘Shape of You‘. The hit song was released in the year 2017. Sheeran was accused of copying the ‘Oh I‘ in ‘Shape of You‘ from the artist’s song ‘Oh Why‘. The copyright case was filed in a trial court in 2018 by two artists and Sheeran attended all the hearings diligently.
In April 2022, the court ruled in Ed’s favor freeing him of all the copyright charges. The judge ruled that he hadn’t copied the song, neither deliberately nor subconsciously. Finally, the UK’s best-selling track for the year 2017 and also Spotify’s one of most played tracks was freed from allegations. But who actually accused Ed Sheeran of copyright infringement? Let us know!
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Who Accused Ed Sheeran Of Stealing ‘Shape Of You’?
The people who filed a case of copyright infringement against the British singer were singer Sami Chokri and writer Ross O’Donoghue. Both artists are the collective owner of the song ‘Oh Why‘ which was released in 2015. Sami and Ross not only sued Ed Sheeran but also McDaid and Steve Mac. This case affected Ed Sheeran in quite a lot of ways and caused him unnecessary trouble. Sami may have been unsuccessful in the court case, but he is still in the news.
The man, who goes by the stage name Sami Switch and hails from Caversham in Reading, is 28 years old. Sami Chokri is a grime musician. He started his career in music while he was still in high school and eventually got into a professional studio at the age of 16. This was right after his meeting with Twan Pemberton, the son of Liz Mitchell of Boney M.
However, Sami was not into music since the beginning of his career. In his initial career, he wrote poetry for the simple reason that both of his parents were “extremely into poetry.” ‘Carpe Diem‘ was the name of the rapper’s debut mixtape, which he published in May of 2011. He explained to Reading Chronicle in 2012 that he named the mixtape after the phrase because he was “going through a stage when I was maybe grabbing the moment a bit too much.”
In the past seven years, he has only released 6 songs on his own YouTube page. The majority of these tracks are taken from his album ‘Solace‘. On the other hand, Sami’s Spotify is where he is most active. In the last two years, he has issued a total of three singles, with the most successful being ‘Trouble‘ which received approximately two million streams.
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The Case Verdict
Although Sami and Ross are great artists and have made incredible music, their popularity and fanbase after the copyright case decreased. This is because the ‘Oh Why‘ singer and writer lost the legal battle and also took on a rivalry with Ed Sheeran and his fans of course. The verdict also goes against Sami for obvious reasons resulting in his reputation getting besmirched.
Andrew Sutcliffe QC, who represents Sami, asserted that the ‘Perfect‘ singer had composed the song with the melody of ‘Oh Why‘ “consciously or unconsciously in his head.” This was due to the fact that the base track for ‘Shape Of You‘ was written in less than an hour. The response from Ed’s attorneys, on the other hand, was that speed is nothing but an illustration of his musical ability.
Sheeran discussed the outcome of the successful trial on Twitter, where he asserted that such lawsuits are becoming increasingly frequent. As a result, it is causing harm to the industry of songwriting. The statement read, “I’m not a corporation. I’m a human being,” he said. “I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a son. Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience and I hope with this ruling, it means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided. This really does have to end.”
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