A $20 million (£16 million) copyright infringement court case made against Ed Sheeran has reached a settlement.
Last year, songwriters Thomas Leonard and Martin Harrington filed a lawsuit against Ed, claiming that his song ‘Photograph’ directly copied former ‘X Factor’ winner Matt Cardle’s track, ‘Amazing’.
BBC News has now reported that a deal has been reached between the two parties, and the lawsuit has now been dismissed “with prejudice” meaning it cannot be brought to court again.
Details of the deal have not been made public, though the Express has claimed that the “compensation” was “substantial”.
The original lawsuit accused Ed of lifting “39 identical notes” from ‘Amazing’ when writing ‘Photograph’, with the songwriters claiming the similarities were “instantly recognisable to the ordinary observer”.
Although he’s the lead performer on ‘Amazing’, Matt Cardle deliberately distanced himself from the lawsuit when it was first filed by his co-writers last year, insisting at the time: “I think [Ed] is a genius [and] 100% deserves all his success.”
This isn’t the first time that Ed has been accused of copying another artist, though.
Marvin Gaye’s estate recently complained that elements of ‘Thinking Out Loud’ may have been copied from ‘Let’s Get it On’, following a successful lawsuit against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over their track, ‘Blurred Lines’.
Court papers claimed: “The melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic compositions of ‘Thinking’ are substantially and/or strikingly similar to the drum composition of ‘Let’s’.”
Last month, several co-writers of the TLC hit ‘No Scrubs’ were added to the credits of Ed’s chart-topping single, ‘Shape Of You’.