Ed Sheeran denies 'borrowing' ideas from smaller songwriters in copyright court battle

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Ed Sheeran has denied that he "borrows" ideas from unknown songwriters without providing acknowledgement. He denied the allegations during a High Court trial over the copyright of his hit song Shape Of You.

The popular singer gave live evidence on Monday as part of his legal battle with two songwriters - Sami Chokri and Ross O'Donoghue.

The pair allege that Mr Sheeran's 2017 song rips off parts of their track Oh Why - which the singer denies. On Friday, Andrew Sutcliffe QC claimed Mr Sheeran "borrows ideas and throws them into his songs, sometimes he will acknowledge it but sometimes he won't" Read more: Locked Up: The criminals jailed in Greater Manchester this week The barrister alleges that Mr Sheeran's acknowledgement seems to depend on how famous the other artist is - he noted that Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue "are not Shaggy, Coldplay, Rihanna or Jay-Z" and said "if they were they would have been treated in a very different way".

At the start of his evidence on Monday, Ian Mill QC, representing Mr Sheeran, asked: “Do you accept that you behave or have behaved in that way?” Mr Sheeran said “no”, before adding: “The examples he has been using are obviously famous artists, two of them are people I’ve made songs with.” He continued that “if Mr Sutcliffe would have done his research”, he would have known there were “lots” of unknown artists he had cleared parts of songs with.