Learning English

Ed Sheeran wins Shape of You copyright case

Ed Sheeran has won a High Court copyright battle over his 2017 hit Shape of You.

He was accused of plagiarising the 2015 song Oh Why by Sami Chokri.

A judge ruled this was not the case.

Tom and Roy discuss this news story and teach you some related vocabulary so you can talk about it too.

Watch the video and complete the activity

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The story 

"Whilst we’re obviously happy with the result, I feel like claims like this are way too common now and have become a culture where claims are made with the idea that settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court - even if there's no base for the claim.

It’s really damaging to the song-writing 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.

That's 22 million songs a year, and there's only 12 notes that are available."

- Ed Sheeran - 06/04/22

Key words and phrases

baseless
without evidence or facts

• The rumour that the boss didn’t have a degree turned out to be baseless.
• Isabella made a baseless claim that she was unfairly dismissed from her job

rip off
copy or plagiarise something

• He accused the other student of ripping off his essay.
• I can’t believe how expensive this city is. Everything is a rip-off!

in the wake of
after or because of something

• In the wake of the allegations, the CEO decided to resign.
• In the wake of the financial report, the company’s share value dropped.

To do

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