Ed Sheeran is fighting back in a legal war over a song he wrote for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.
In January (18), Sean Carey and Beau Golden accused the Brit of ripping off the melody for their 2014 song When I Found You, which they wrote for Jasmine Rae, when he penned The Rest of Our Life, which was a hit Tim and Faith last year.
Now, Ed has hit back with documents of his own, denying there’s any similarity in the sound of the songs.
In the legal papers, obtained by TMZ, the Shape of You singer admits he never sought Sean and Beau’s permission because The Rest of Our Life is an “originally and independently created musical composition”.
He calls their claim baseless, and has urged the judge overseeing the matter to toss out the lawsuit.
When Sean and Beau filed their legal action, they claimed there was “blatant copying” of their own tune, adding: “The copying is, in many instances, verbatim, note-for-note copying of original elements of the Song, and is obvious to the ordinary observer.”
In the lawsuit, they also named co-writers Johnny McDaid and Amy Wadge, as well as Sony/ATV, Universal Polygram and WB Music, and asked for $5 million (£3.5 million) in actual damages plus profits, royalties and an award of attorney’s fees, as well as injunctive relief.
It’s not the first time Ed has been accused of ripping off a song; in 2016, he was sued by a co-writer of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On over alleged similarities between the soul classic and his hit Thinking Out Loud, but that suit was eventually dismissed.
He was also sued in 2016 by Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard over his song Photograph, which they claimed plagiarised their song Amazing, sung by The X Factor U.K. winner Matt Cardle. The lawsuit was privately settled in April 2017.
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