On the tail end of news that he scored a victory in court, Ed Sheeran is offering a warning against “baseless” lawsuits. The mega-entertainer was sued by Sami Chokri who claimed that Sheeran plagiarized his smash hit “Shape of You” but today (April 6), a judge ruled in the singer’s favor. It is a common occurrence these days as musicians, performers, songwriters, and producers are being hauled to court over accusations that they’ve stolen or copied material from lesser-known artists.
Sheeran and his team have fought against these accusations tooth and nail as reputations and careers were on the line, and although Sheeran has expressed he is happy this hurdle is now a thing of the past, he hopped on a video to tell the world these sorts of suits need to come to an end.
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“While I’m obviously happy with the result, 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 a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there is no basis for the claim,” Sheeran said solemnly. “That’s really damaging to the songwriting industry. There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if sixty thousand songs are being released every day on Spotify. That’s 22 million songs a year and there’s only 12 notes available.”
“I don’t want to take anything away from the pain and hurt suffered from both sides of this case, but I just want to say, I’m not an entity,” he continued. “I’m not a corporation. I’m a human being. I’m a father. I’m a husband. I’m a son. Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience and I hope that this mean in the future, baseless claims like this can be avoided. This really does have to end.”
Artists like Lizzo, The Chainsmokers, and Dua Lipa have all fought, or are still fighting, against accusations such as this. Check out Sheeran’s video below.
[via]