To cover his legal fees, Sheeran won a $1.1M award after years of an embattled copyright lawsuit over his 2017 “Shape of You,” Grammy-winning single.
“The starting point is to identify the winners and losers in the action because the general rule is that the unsuccessful party pays the costs of the successful party,” Judge Antony Zacaroli wrote in his decision. “There is no dispute as to this: [Sheeran] undoubtedly won and won on every substantial point […] I consider it is appropriate that the claimants’ success is reflected in an order that the defendants pay their costs.”
“While we’re happy with the result, I feel like claims like this are way too common now and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court,” he said. “Even if there’s no base for the claim. It’s damaging to the songwriting industry. There are only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are released daily on Spotify.”
– Excerpt from an article for Complex by Joshua Espinoza. Read the full article here.
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