The Shape of Winning

The most-streamed song on Spotify is plagiarism-free, per a London judge's ruling released yesterday.

🎤 A deeper dive... The copyright case in question centered around "Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran, who stood accused of stealing sound from UK grime artist Sami Chokri and his co-writer Ross O’Donoghue.

• Lawyers for Chokri and O’Donoghue argued that "Shape of You" copied the hook of their track, which includes the phrase “oh why” being sung several times.
• In order to prove the claim, they needed to show that Sheeran had listened to Chokri’s song – otherwise the similarities would just be coincidence. But the judge ruled there was only speculative evidence that had ever occurred.
• “Shape of You” is the most-streamed song of all-time on Spotify, garnering over 3 billion plays. It earns Sheeran and his co-writers upwards of $6.5 million per year.

💬 Bad Habits... “[The trend of suing and hoping to settle is] really damaging to the songwriting industry. There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotify,” Sheeran said in a video posted after the judgment was released.

⚖️ Zoom out: In 2017, Sheeran settled out of court over claims he copied his song “Photograph.” A separate ongoing lawsuit accuses him of ripping off Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” with his track “Thinking Out Loud.”

• Fellow UK pop star Dua Lipa is currently facing a pair of lawsuits claiming copyright infringement over “Levitating,” which was bought, streamed, or played on the radio more than any other song in America last year.