Ed Sheeran copyright case: Music experts disagree over ‘Shape Of You’ and ‘Oh Why’ similarities

nme.com:

Ed Sheeran‘s ‘Shape Of You’ is “coincidentally similar” and bears “distinctive differences” to the song the singer is accused of copying.It’s alleged that Sheeran and two of his co-writers, Johnny McDaid and Steve Mac, lifted  “particular lines and phrases” for the 2017 ‘÷’ single from a track called ‘Oh Why’ by Sami Switch (real name Sam Chokri).The latter artist and his co-writer Ross O’Donoghue claim that Sheeran took the “oh I, oh I, oh I, oh I” hook from the aforementioned song, which was released in 2015.

Sheeran has “vehemently den[ied]” the accusation and rejected the suggestion that he heard ‘Oh Why’ before he wrote ‘Shape Of You’ in October 2016.McDaid, who is also a member of Snow Patrol, claimed in written evidence last week that he could not recall ever hearing ‘Oh Why’ “in any way” and said he was unaware of Sami Switch before the current legal case began.Now, as Sky News reports, Anthony Ricigliano – a US forensic musicologist – concluded that it is “objectively unlikely” that any similarities between the two songs in question “result from copying”.Ricigliano, who had been instructed by Sheeran’s lawyers, told the court during the ongoing copyright trial that he was “completely impartial” and said he believed the extent of the alleged similarities to be “overstated”.“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 utilised in ‘Oh Why’,” Ricigliano explained in written evidence.However, another musicology expert, Christian Siddell, said that he’d noticed melodic similarities “so numerous and striking that the possibility of independent creation is… highly improbable”.Earlier in the trial,.