After having to defend his “Shape Of You” lyrics in court, Ed Sheeran shared his feelings about his legal win Wednesday.
Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue released a song titled “Oh Why” in 2015 and filed suit against Sheeran and co-authors of the “Shape Of You” single, Steven McCutcheon and John McDaid. They cited copyright infringement, claiming Sheeran and his team had ripped their song, according to EOnline. The court ruled in Sheeran’s favor, according to the outlet.
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After his win, Ed Sheeran took to social media and said he was “obviously happy with the result” but went on to admit that he was upset about having to defend his lyrics, and wanted to put an end to future claims of this nature, according to a video he posted to his Instagram page.
“I feel like claims like this [are] way too common now, and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there’s no basis for the claim,” he said in his video. (RELATED: Ed Sheeran Sued For Copyright Infringement)
The Grammy award winner revealed that he had crafted a joint statement alongside McCutcheon and McDaid that will soon be released to the press, but in the interim, he felt it necessary to express how frustrating it was for him to be put in this position.
Sheeran expressed his emotions by saying, “I just want to say I’m not an entity. I’m not a corporation. I’m a human being. I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a son,” according to the video.
“It’s really damaging to the songwriting industry,” Sheeran said in his video. He went on to explain the creative factors that come into play in cases such as this one.
“There’s only so many nights and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotify. That’s 22 million songs a year and there’s only 12 notes that are available,” he said.
Sheeran told fans “Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience” and went on to thank his supporters.
“Me, Johnny and Steve are very grateful for all the support sent to us by fellow songwriters over the last few weeks. Hopefully, we can all get back to writing songs rather than having to prove that we can write them,” Sheeran said.
