English singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran has revealed that he now films his songwriting sessions to try to avoid copyright claims in the future.
Sheeran revealed this after winning the court case regarding his hit single “Shape of You” on Wednesday. Sheeran had been accused of lifting the song’s lyrics from another track. However the judge on the case Judge Antony Zacaroli ruled that Sheeran was not guilty. He stated that the singer “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied a phrase from British grime track “Oh Why”, when writing “Shape of You”.
He revealed,
“Now I just film everything, everything is on film. We’ve had claims come through on the songs and we go, well here’s the footage and you watch. You’ll see there’s nothing there. I personally think the best feeling in the world is the euphoria. Which is around the first idea of writing a great song. That feeling has now turned into ‘oh wait, let’s stand back for a minute’. You find yourself in the moment, second-guessing yourself.”
Despite being released in 2017, “Shape of You” remains the most-streamed song ever on Spotify, with more than three billion streams. Sheeran won a Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance for the song. Sheeran shares the writing credit for the track with several others. However, two other songwriters, Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue, alleged that the song had musical similarities to their own composition “Oh Why”, performed under Chokri’s stage-name Sami Switch.
