Two British singer-songwriters, Sam Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue, have sued the British singer over parts of their song ‘Oh Why’ featured in Sheeran’s hit — numbering one worldwide in 2017. The two are relatively unknown, but confident. Specifically, it is about the well-known part ‘Oh-I’. According to Sheeran “a spontaneous hunch and not plagiarism”, he defended himself in the London High Court on Monday and yesterday. Sheeran says he writes most of his songs spontaneously, so there’s no premeditation involved. “And he certainly has a foot to stand on in this case,” says pop music professor Jeroen D’hoe of KU Leuven. “Ed Sheeran’s typical melody on that ‘Oh-I’ has such a rhythmic identity. The way he sings that in no way resembles the ‘Oh Why’ in which the two see a reason to turn it into a plagiarism case. This is totally out of the blue and no plagiarism. I’m not going to refute that there is a similarity in sound. But seeing plagiarism on the basis of sound resemblance is a bridge too far. And that is unfortunately a phenomenon in the music world today. All because of the trial of Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’, which marked a turning point in plagiarism.”
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