“Western music uses only 12 notes”, explain it New Statesman. Certainly the possibilities of arrangement and unique combinations of chords and rhythms are endless. “But in pop music, familiarity is as important as originality. The question is: when does the innocent use of common conventions become plagiarism? There is now an explosion of lawsuits on copyright issues in US and UK courts [en France, le droit d’auteur repose sur un système juridique différent].” And the case of Ed Sheeran is particularly emblematic of this trend, explains the British magazine.
The English singer had to explain himself to the High Court in London (a superior court, not to be confused with the Supreme Court) during eleven days of a trial which ended on March 22. He is waiting for the verdict which will come “decide this delicate question: did he copy the work of another to concoct Shape of Youhis planetary hit of 2017?” abstract The weather. The Swiss daily recalls the complaint filed four years ago by Sami Chokri, a British musician. “At issue: the disturbing similarities between Shape of You (heady sound ‘Oh I, oh I, oh I’) and a passage from a track by Chokri released in 2015, Oh Why.”
“Traumatic lawsuit” vs “thieving magpie”
In court, representatives of Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue (co-author ofOh Why) argued that the two excerpts “are almost identical, to the point that a moderately informed listener may think that one is a borrowing from the other”, specify the Daily Mail, who kept the transcripts. The lawyers, before playing on the earthen pot rope against the iron pot (Chokri is not a superstar, unlike the par