Ed Sheeran has revealed that he films all of his songwriting sessions, after winning a fierce High Court battle over Shape of You.
The 31-year-old Suffolk singer said he films all of his songwriting sessions to protect himself from future accusations of plagiarism.
In a preview of tonight’s Newsnight interview, Sheeran discussed a previous claim made in 2017 in the US about his song Photograph.
The artist said he “personally” regrets choosing Photograph, saying he hadn’t played the song in a long time.
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Ed Sheeran said his songwriting changed after his first plagiarism complaint in 2015, and he often finds himself “questioning” himself.
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“I just stopped playing it,” he said. “I felt weird about it, it made me feel a little dirty.”
Sheeran added: “Now I film everything, everything is filmed.”
“We’ve had complaints about the songs and come on, well here’s the footage and you’re looking at it. You will see that there is nothing.
He said that songwriting in the studio had changed since the first claim of plagiarism and that he often questioned himself.
He said: ‘There’s George Harrison’s point where he said he was afraid to play the piano because he might play someone else’s note. There’s definitely a sense of that in the studio.
“Personally, I think the best feeling in the world is the euphoria around the first idea of writing a great song.
The singer-songwriter, photographed in London yesterday, is now recording his sessions so that the video can be played, in the event of a plagiarism lawsuit.
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“That feeling has now turned into ‘Oh wait, let’s back up a minute’. You find yourself in the moment, questioning yourself.
In 2018, Sheeran, along with Snow Patrol’s John McDaid and producer Steven McCutcheon, were accused of copying the 2015 song Oh Why by Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue.
They won their 11-day battle in High Court on Wednesday, with the judge finding that Sheeran “neither deliberately nor unknowingly” copied a line from the 2015 song when writing his number one hit.
The 2017 song is the most played track on Spotify with 3.091 million plays.
After his win, Sheeran told the BBC’s Newsnight the issue was about “honesty” and not money.
He said he was “happy it’s over, I’m glad we can move on and start writing songs again”, but that the episode made him “sad” and changed his way of life.
Sitting next to him, multi-instrumentalist McDaid spoke about the consequences of the affair on his mental health.
He said: “Last year he got very heavy and wasted. The cost to our mental health and creativity was truly tangible.
Sami Chokri (left) and Ross O’Donoghue (right) arrive at the Rolls Building in central London, where Ed Sheeran has taken legal action over his 2017 hit Shape of You after the duo claimed the song violated parts of one of their tracks
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Sheeran and his co-authors originally launched a lawsuit in May 2018, asking the High Court to declare that they had not infringed Chokri and O’Donoghue’s copyrights.
Two months later, Chokri, a grime artist who performs under the name Sami Switch, and O’Donoghue filed their own lawsuit for “copyright infringement, damages, and profit account related to the alleged infringement.”
The pair alleged that an “Oh I” hook on Shape Of You is “strikingly similar” to an “Oh why” chorus on their own track.
The three co-writers of Shape Of You denied the copying allegations and said they did not recall listening to Oh Why before the legal fight.
During last month’s trial at London’s Rolls Building, Sheeran denied “borrowing” ideas from unknown songwriters without acknowledging them and insisted he “always tried to be completely fair” in giving credit to people who contribute to his albums.
Chokri said at trial that he felt “robbed” by Sheeran and was “shocked” when he first heard Shape Of You on the radio.
The lawyer for the co-writers of Oh Why, Andrew Sutcliffe QC, has alleged that Sheeran is an artist who “modifies” words and music belonging to others to “pass them off as originals”.
Sheeran, McDaid and McCutcheon’s Ian Mill QC said the accusations against him were “impossible to contain”, and the evidence pointed to Shape Of You being an “independent creation”.
Sheeran was present throughout the trial and frequently sang and hummed musical scales and melodies when appearing on the witness stand.
His full interview is on Newsnight at 10:30pm tonight on BBC Two.
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