Famous artists who have been accused of plagiarism
Copyright infringement in the music industry can be tricky. While some songs accidentally sound like others, many hit tracks we know have actually used samples or riffs from older records without attributing proper credit, which can get artists in legal trouble. Is imitation truly the sincerest form of flattery? Many musicians don't seem to think so...Ed Sheeran has been embroiled in a legal battle against Grime artist Sami Switch (Sami Chokri) since 2018. Chokri accused Sheeran of plagiarising his song 'Oh Why' in the 2017 hit 'Shape of You.' Rather than settling, as many artists do to save time and money, Sheeran went to court and fought his case over several years. On April 6, Sheeran posted a video to Instagram confirming that he had finally won. The judge ruled that he had "neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied" Chokri's song. Sheeran was pleased with the result but wanted to share his thoughts on the issue of copyright infringement.
" 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," he began. "Even if there's no base for the claim, it's really damaging to the songwriting industry," as "there's only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music." He pointed out that there are 22,000 new songs added to Spotify every day and that there are only 12 notes in music. "This really does have to end," he concluded. "Hopefully, we can all get back to writing songs rather than having to prove that we can write them."
