British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran hummed and sang in court on Tuesday as he testified in a copyright lawsuit over his 2017 mega-hit “Shape Of You.”
The chart topper is in a legal battle with grime artist Sami Chokri, who plays Sami Switch, and music producer Ross O`Donoghue, who claim “Shape of You” violates “lines and phrases.” particularities” of their 2015 song “Oh Why”. ‘.
Chokri and O’Donoghue say the “Oh I” hook in “Shape Of You” is “strikingly similar” to the “Oh Why” hook in their song and that it was “extremely likely” that Sheeran had heard their track before. Sheeran and his co-authors denied this.
Ed Sheeran denies ‘borrowing’ music in ‘Shape of You’ copyright lawsuit
On his second day of interrogation by Chokri and O’Donoghue’s attorney, Andrew Sutcliffe, Sheeran repeatedly sang the “Oh I” hook. He also sang lines from songs including Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” in the same key to show how similar the melodies can sound.
Asked repeatedly about the similarities between the ‘Oh Why’ and ‘Oh I’ brackets, Sheeran repeatedly told the High Court in London: “They’re both pentatonic scales and they both use vowels .”
Sutcliffe, who on Friday’s opener called Sheeran “a magpie,” asked him at length about his writing of the song in October 2016 with co-writers Steven McCutcheon and John McDaid, and the changes that came along. as it develops.
‘Shape of You’ copyright dispute: Ed Sheeran is a ‘magpie’ who ‘borrows ideas’
“If I had heard ‘Oh Why’ at the time and referred to it, I would have taken steps to erase it,” Sheeran said in his witness statement.
The court played recordings of Sheeran singing the hook in different pitches, called stacking. “It sounds like you were singing ‘Oh Why’,” Sutcliffe told Sheeran, who replied, “I was singing ‘Oh I’. ”
“The lyrics are ‘Oh I, I’m in love with your body’. The lyrics ‘Oh why, I’m in love with your body’ don’t make sense.”
Sheeran was also asked about his taste in music, which he said was varied, but he was particularly fond of British grime and rap. He said he had “disappeared for the whole year” in 2016 and was not actively following the UK music scene.
“You are a squirrel of excessive music. You consume music voraciously,” Sutcliffe told Sheeran. “I’m a music fan, I love music, I listen to music,” Sheeran replied.
On Monday, Sheeran said he had no knowledge of Switch at the time he was accused of stealing parts of “Oh Why,” and had never heard the song before the trial.
Sheeran was briefly upset when a short piece of his unreleased music was played. The court heard that the wrong folder on McCutcheon’s laptop was accidentally opened.