Ed Sheeran in court: why plagiarism claims keep hitting a wrong note

I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for someone to shake.

Ed Sheeran is no stranger to the inside of a courtroom these days. Over the past several years, the superstar singer-songwriter has fought a series of high-profile copyright lawsuits accusing him of plagiarising other artists’ music. In each case, Sheeran has vehemently denied wrongdoing – and so far, he’s been vindicated. The ordeal has seen him strumming his guitar on the witness stand and missing personal milestones to defend his art. It has also sparked a broader debate about creativity in pop music, where only a handful of chords and notes underpin millions of songs.

Thinking Out Loud in the dock

In a Manhattan federal court in spring 2023, jurors watched Ed Sheeran pick up his acoustic guitar and give an impromptu performance – not for entertainment, but as evidence. He was on trial over claims that his 2014 ballad “Thinking Out Loud” copied elements of Marvin Gaye’s 1973 classic “Let’s Get It On.” The heirs of Ed Townsend – Gaye’s co-writer on that soul hit – alleged that Sheeran had lifted the song’s harmonic progression and rhythms for “Thinking Out Loud.” On the witness stand, Sheeran played the four-chord sequence from his song and even sang a snatch of its early lyrics to show the jury how he wrote it. His point was clear: the chord pattern he used is extremely common and, by itself, not unique to any one song.

After a tense trial, the New York jury unanimously ruled in early May 2023 that Sheeran did not infringe on “Let’s Get It On.” Relief washed over the singer, who had openly said during the case that if he lost, he would feel compelled to quit music. “It looks like I’m not having to retire from my day job after all,” he quipped outside the courthouse, in a statement tinged with both satisfaction and frustration. But he didn’t hide his dismay that the case ever reached a courtroom. “We’ve spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords,” Sheeran told reporters, stressing that those four chords are “common building blocks” used by songwriters every day, all over the world. These chords, he argued, “were used to create music long before ‘Let’s Get It On’ was written and will be used to make music long after we are all gone.” No one owns basic musical building blocks, in Sheeran’s view, “the same way no one owns the colour blue.”

The “Thinking Out Loud” verdict was a major personal victory for Sheeran. It also underscored a legal reality: common chord progressions and simple musical phrases aren’t generally protected by copyright. In fact, a related lawsuit over the same song had already been dismissed by a judge on those grounds. (That separate case was brought by an investment company that owns part of “Let’s Get It On”; multiple courts found that the shared elements between the songs were too generic to be considered theft.) But having to fight the accusation publicly clearly took a toll on Sheeran. The singer revealed that the trial’s timing caused him to miss his grandmother’s funeral in Ireland – an agonising sacrifice. “Having to be in New York for this trial meant I’ve missed being with my family at my grandmother’s funeral, and I will never get that time back,” he lamented. It was a stark reminder that behind the celebrity status is a human being with real emotions and responsibilities. No wonder that after the verdict, Sheeran shared hugs with his legal team and expressed hope that this decision would help protect songwriters’ creative freedom going forward.

Victory over the Shape of You claim

The New York trial wasn’t the first time Ed Sheeran was pressed to defend his songwriting in court. Just a year earlier, he faced a similar battle in London’s High Court – that time over his record-breaking hit “Shape of You.” In 2018, a little-known British musician named Sami Chokri (who performs as Sami Switch) accused “Shape of You” of lifting a key melodic hook from his 2015 song “Oh Why.” The hook in question was a brief repeated phrase – Sheeran sings “Oh I, oh I, oh I” in Shape of You and Chokri had sung “Oh why, oh why, oh why” in his track – and Chokri claimed it was “strikingly similar” to his work. Sheeran and his co-writers, Johnny McDaid and Steve Mac, were stunned by the allegation. In fact, they took the proactive step of suing first, asking the High Court to declare that they had not infringed Chokri’s copyright. This came after Shape of You royalties were temporarily frozen due to the claim, and Sheeran felt his reputation was unjustly tarnished.

The case finally went to trial in early 2022, and Ed Sheeran once again found himself in a courtroom explaining the origins of his music. Over eleven days of testimony, he adamantly denied having ever heard “Oh Why” before writing “Shape of You.” He even demonstrated how the contested “Oh I” chorus came to life spontaneously during a songwriting session – an example of his creative process rather than an act of copying. In April 2022, Mr Justice Zacaroli delivered a decisive judgment in Sheeran’s favour. The judge ruled that Sheeran had “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied anything from “Oh Why.” Yes, there was a resemblance in the tiny sung phrase, but the court found significant differences too, and noted that such a short common expression is only the starting point for a copyright claim, not proof of one.

Sheeran greeted the Shape of You verdict with a mix of triumph and weary exasperation. In a candid video message to fans afterwards, he condemned what he sees as a growing culture of baseless lawsuits. “Claims like this are way too common now,” he said, describing how plaintiffs increasingly make accusations hoping that a quick settlement will be easier (and more lucrative) than a court fight – even when the claims have no real merit. He warned that this trend is “really damaging to the songwriting industry.” There was an unmistakable passion in his voice as he explained the fundamental issue: “There are only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music,” Sheeran said. With 60,000 songs being released a day – about 22 million songs a year – coincidences are bound to happen, he pointed out. In other words, with such an avalanche of music being created, it’s inevitable that melodies or phrases will sometimes overlap by pure chance.

For Sheeran, the Shape of You case wasn’t just about one song, it was about defending the integrity of all songwriters who rely on the same limited musical alphabet. He noted that he and his collaborators have always tried to acknowledge their influences and give credit where due, but insisted he would not pay people off for groundless claims. “I’m not an entity, I’m not a corporation,” he said emphatically, “I’m a human being, a father, a husband, a son.” Lawsuits, in his words, are “not a pleasant experience,” and he hopes that after his legal victories “baseless claims like this can be avoided” in the future.

Earlier plagiarism claims and settlements

The two courtroom victories in 2022 and 2023 may have strengthened Sheeran’s resolve, but they came after a couple of painful episodes that never got that far. In fact, Sheeran’s troubles with plagiarism allegations began years earlier, as his popularity skyrocketed. One of the earliest and most prominent cases involved his ballad “Photograph.” In 2016, two songwriters – Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard – filed a lawsuit in the United States claiming “Photograph” was a note-for-note copy of a song they had written years before. Their song, “Amazing,” had been recorded by a British reality show winner in 2012, and it hadn’t made much impact on the charts. But Harrington and Leonard alleged that the soaring chorus of “Photograph” shared 39 identical notes with “Amazing,” calling it “verbatim, note-for-note copying” of their work. They demanded $20 million in damages and named Sheeran and his Photograph co-writer (Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol) as defendants, accusing them of “unabashedly taking credit” for the melody.

Sheeran’s team responded at the time by calling the claims “scandalous” and overly aggressive. Industry observers noted that the lawsuit was spearheaded by the same attorney who had famously won the “Blurred Lines” copyright case against Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke a year prior – a case that many believe opened the floodgates for a new wave of plagiarism suits in pop music. With such high stakes and uncertain odds, Sheeran chose to settle the Photograph dispute out of court in 2017. The plaintiffs were reportedly added to the song’s credits and received a confidential sum (reports suggested up to $20 million, though the exact figure wasn’t disclosed). Importantly, settling did not mean Sheeran admitted wrongdoing – in fact, musicologists theorised that the similarity might have been a case of “cryptomnesia,” or unconscious influence, rather than intentional theft. Sheeran himself has since indicated he regretted agreeing to that settlement. It likely pained him to compromise, but at the time, avoiding a protracted legal battle (and a possible courtroom loss in the post-Blurred Lines climate) was an understandable decision.

Around the same period, Sheeran was hit with another claim – this time for a song he had written for other artists. In early 2018, songwriters Sean Carey and Beau Golden sued Sheeran over “The Rest of Our Life,” a country-pop tune he had co-written for American stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. The Australian writers argued that “The Rest of Our Life” was a “blatant” copy of their own composition “When I Found You,” which had been released by a local artist two years earlier. They alleged the melody and structure were almost identical. Sheeran firmly denied any deliberate copying, but before the case could escalate, it too was settled later in 2018. The terms weren’t made public, but an agreement was reached to everyone’s “satisfaction,” and the lawsuit was withdrawn. Notably, the singer whose song was allegedly copied, Jasmine Rae, had not wanted to sue and wasn’t a plaintiff – she was mainly interested in proper credit. This case, like Photograph, ended quietly but added to the swirl of headlines suggesting Ed Sheeran was “always getting sued” for plagiarism.

By the time he stepped into the witness box to defend Shape of You and Thinking Out Loud, Sheeran had been through the wringer with these previous claims. Those early settlements may have taught him that paying off accusers didn’t put the issue to rest – if anything, it perhaps encouraged more people to press forward with dubious allegations in hopes of an easy payday. Indeed, Sheeran said he found it “devastating” to have his integrity questioned after he’d poured his life into his songs. It’s one reason he decided enough was enough, choosing to fight the later cases to the end – and winning.

Chords, creativity and the cost of baseless claims

Ed Sheeran’s courtroom clashes have resonated far beyond his personal orbit. They’ve become flashpoints in a growing debate over originality, inspiration and copyright in modern music. On one hand, artists absolutely deserve protection from true theft of their work. But where is the line between genuine plagiarism and the natural overlap that occurs when thousands of musicians are all using the same musical building blocks? Sheeran’s stance is clear: common chord progressions, basic rhythms, and short snippets of melody should not be monopolised by anyone. After all, virtually every pop song is built on just a few chords that have been used in countless songs before. As Sheeran dryly noted, 60,000 new songs come out each day on streaming platforms – it defies logic to expect each one to have a completely unique musical DNA. If the courts started penalising songwriters for using the only vocabulary that exists in music, creativity would be stifled overnight. “If the jury had decided this matter the other way,” Sheeran said after his New York trial, “we might as well say goodbye to the creative freedom of songwriters.”

The fallout from these cases has already changed how some artists operate. In the post-Blurred Lines era, big-name musicians have taken to crediting writers of older songs for even remote resemblances, just to avoid lawsuits. Sheeran himself did this in 2017, adding the writers of TLC’s 90s hit “No Scrubs” to the credits of “Shape of You.” He hadn’t been sued or found guilty of copying that tune – but fans had pointed out a similarity in a catchy vocal riff, and in the atmosphere of heightened legal risk, the credit was added pre-emptively. It was a gesture of caution, perhaps, or respect – but also a sign of the times. Other stars like Taylor Swift have done the same, acknowledging inspirations before anyone cries infringement.

For Ed Sheeran, who built his career on raw talent and heartfelt songwriting, the notion that he would deliberately steal someone else’s music has always seemed absurd. He writes prolifically and says most of his songs come together in a matter of hours. In court, he described how “Thinking Out Loud” was born in one spontaneous session in his home, with his friend and co-writer Amy Wadge strumming guitars opposite him. There was no calculated plan to mimic a Marvin Gaye groove – just two musicians bouncing ideas off each other in the way that songwriters have done for ages. Sheeran has even started recording all his studio writing sessions on video, an extreme but telling precaution. “Ever since [the first claim], I’ve filmed every studio session,” he revealed in an interview, so that he can always produce proof of his creative process if another accusation lands at his door. It’s a practice that underscores how much these lawsuits have affected him. What should be an intimate, free-flowing artistic process now has the shadow of legal scrutiny hanging over it.

After prevailing in his recent cases, Sheeran didn’t gloat – instead, he sounded a warning. He called out the “unfounded claims” fueled by so-called experts who, in his view, manipulate similarities to mislead courts and juries. In the Thinking Out Loud trial, for instance, his team demonstrated that the other side’s musicologist had cherry-picked aspects of the songs and even omitted certain notes to exaggerate the comparison. The jury saw through it, but not every artist has the resources to mount such a defense. “This seems so dangerous to me,” Sheeran said, noting that an environment where songwriters constantly fear a lawsuit helps no one – except maybe copyright lawyers. He argues that we need a dose of common sense to return to music. That means discouraging opportunistic claims while still supporting legitimate ones, so that true creative theft can be punished, but honest songwriters aren’t dragged through years of litigation for coincidences.

Ultimately, Ed Sheeran’s battles highlight a simple truth: there are only so many ways to combine chords and notes into a pleasing tune. If two songs share a vibe or a chord sequence, it’s not automatically a case of plagiarism – more often than not it’s just how music works. Sheeran’s own immense success has made him a prime target for these claims, but he’s determined not to be an easy one. “I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for someone to shake,” he declared after defeating the Marvin Gaye comparison. For the millions of fans who adore his music, it was a reassuring statement that he isn’t quitting anytime soon. And for the music industry, it was a hopeful sign that common sense still has a place in songwriting – that artists can create new songs using familiar chords without fear of being sued for simply speaking the universal language of music.