Ed Sheeran settles £16 million lawsuit after claims his track Photograph ‘exploited’ Matt Cardle’s song Amazing
The singer has settled the dispute with Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard after they accused him of making a ‘note for note’ copy of their song
ED Sheeran has settled a £16 million lawsuit following claims his song Photograph ‘copied and exploited’ Matt Cardle’s song Amazing.
The track was written for The X Factor star by Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard.
The pair took Ed to court and claimed his song was a “note for note” copy of their work.
US judge James Selna confirmed Ed’s case had been dismissed on Tuesday after the Suffolk born star reached an agreement with the writers.
Details of the settlement have not been made public.
Amazing was released by Matt over seven years ago but, last year, it was revealed the writers were taking action against Ed and his co-writer – Snow Patrol star Johnny McDaid.
Ed was accused of “participating in a scheme aiding, inducing, and contributing to copyright infringement in the U.S,” alongside Johnny.
The legal papers continued: “This copying is, in many instances, verbatim, note-for-note copying, makes up nearly one half of Photograph, and raises the case to the unusual level of strikingly similar copying.”
Last month Ed came under fire from fans who alleged some lines in his new song Shape Of You had been copied from TLC's No Scrubs.
Since then the flame-haired star has added both Kandi Burruss and Tameka Cottle - who penned the R N B track - as co-writers alongside the song's producer Kevin Briggs on American copyright website ASCAP.
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