(EXCLUSIVE) Ed Sheeran Blames $20 Million Lawsuit Over Plaintiff’s Failed Music Career

Ed Sheeran

theJasmineBRAND.com exclusively reports, Ed Sheeran is blasting the two songwriters who accused him of stealing their track for his massive hit song “Photographs”, saying the men are completely unknown and he has never heard of them before they filed their $20 million dollar lawsuit. He wants the entire case thrown out and believes the failed songwriters are only suing due to their career failures.

Here’s the latest: On August 25th, Sheeran filed docs in the case explaining the entire lawsuit is nonsense. The singer says the two plaintiffs are relatively unknown songwriters who live in the U.K. He says the song they wrote, “Amazing” was never able to secure its commercial release or obtain any exploitation of the song.

Sheeran points out the songwriters don’t even own a copyright to the track in the United States. He claims it is indisputable that he nor the other writer on his “Photograph” had access to the plaintiff’s music.

He is adamant that he created his hit song independently and without stealing from “Amazing” and points out prior to writing “Photograph”, he was already a extremely successful songwriter with enormously commercially successful songs to his credit. Sheeran says the two tracks aren’t even similar and none of the lyrics are the same along with none of the music outside the chorus.

Sheeran believes the two unknown writers are attempting to convert their failures as songwriters into a more successful livelihood as infringement plaintiffs by riding on his songwriting talents as an artist, which is why “Photograph” was such a success. He believes the entire lawsuit should be thrown out.

Here’s the backstory: Back in June, songwriters Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard filed a $20 million dollar lawsuit against the singer and his labels Sony & Warner Music. The duo accused Sheeran of ripping off their 2009 song “Amazing”, which was recorded and released by ‘X Factor’ seasons 7 winner Matt Cardle.

The two hired the same attorneys that won a $7.4 million dollar judgement against Robin Thicke and Pharrell with Marvin Gaye’s family over “Blurred Lines”.

They explained the singer’s 2015 hit song “Photograph” was a total rip off of their track. They pointed out that Sheeran’s track shared 39 identical notes in pitch, rhythmic duration and placement in the measure.

Further, they claimed the similarities go beyond substantial and are in fact strikingly similar. The two songs share words, vocal style, vocal melody and rhythm among other things.

The songwriters filed suit demanding $20 million in damages along with an injunction from Sheeran continuing to profit illegally off their work.

Here’s Ed Sheeran’s Photograph

Here’s Matt Cardle’s Amazing, written by Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard

Here’s a mash-up of both versions, pointing out alleged similarities

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