Music Experts in Dispute over Ed Sheeran Court Case

The singer Ed Sheeran was charged to court by another singer Sami Chokri who also goes by the name Sami Smith, for lifting a part of his song “Oh Why”. 

On Wednesday, the 15th of March, during the copyright trial, Sam Chokri accused Ed Sheeran of stealing a particular line in his song “Oh Why” in Ed Sheeran's “Shape of You”. Sami Chokri's song “Oh Why” was released in the year 2015 while Ed Sheeran's “Shape of You" was released in the year 2017. According to Sami, his “Oh why, oh why, oh why" is the same with Ed Sheeran's “Oh I, Oh I, Oh I" and that Ed didn't give him credit nor seek permission to use his lines.

Sami told the court __”I feel like I've been robbed by someone I respect or respected” he went ahead to say that all he wanted to do was to get an explanation and that if Ed had given him the explanation as to why he lifted the lines from his song, they wouldn't have to go through “This Rubbish”.

While Ed Sheeran denied of ever hearing of Sami's song “Oh Why” before writing his “Shape of You” song in 2016, his co-writer John McDaid claims to have never listened to, nor heard of the song “Oh Why” nor the artist Sami Smith ever, except for when the copyright case started.

A US Forensic Musicologist Anthony Ricigliano who was being instructed by Ed Sheeran's Lawyer told the high court that he was "Completely Impartial” and said that he views the similarities of both songs to be "Overstated" and wrote in an open statement that “The overall design and musical development of the melodic, harmonic and lyrical content in the relevant phrase in 'Shape of you' are distinctively different from that utilized by “Oh Why”.  

Another music expert, by name Christian Siddell who was being instructed by Sami Chokri and his co-writer Ross O'Donoghue's lawyer, said he observed that the “Melodic similarities were so numerous and striking that the possibility of independent creation is highly…. Improbable”. Ed Sheeran in his defense wrote that his song's" 'Oh I' uses a minor pentatonic pattern" and that it is “entirely commonplace”. 

It was around July 2018 that Sami Chokri and his co-writer Ross O'Donoghue issued a claim for "copyright, infringement, and an account of profit in relation to the alleged infringement”.

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