Ed Sheeran settles copyright suit over hit song Photograph

Ed Sheeran has settled the copyright suit brought by two songwriters over his hit song Photograph.  

The Hollywood Reporter reports court papers were filed Friday, but terms of the settlement are not known. The case has now been dismissed.

Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard filed a lawsuit last June seeking a jury trial and damages in excess of $20 million US, as well as royalties from the song.

They pair had claimed Photograph was "note-for-note copying" of their song Amazing, which had been recorded by Matt Cardle, the winner of the British version of The X Factor in 2010.

The copyright infringement lawsuit was filed last year in U.S. federal court by the two California-based musicians: Harrington, a songwriter and producer, and Leonard, a songwriter signed to Harrington's company HaloSongs. 

In documents that included musical note comparison and chord breakdowns of the two songs, the duo claimed the Photograph chorus shares 39 identical notes with Amazing, saying the similarities are "instantly recognizable to the ordinary observer."

Sheeran on top 

Grammy-winning Sheeran, 25, has become one of UK's top-selling artists in the past two years, and has written and co-written tracks for colleagues such as One Direction, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. Photograph was the fifth single from Sheeran's breakout 2014 album x (pronounced "multiply").

It's not the first time the British singer-songwriter has been accused of releasing tracks that sound like others.

In 2016, heirs of the co-songwriter behind Marvin Gaye​'s Let's Get it On accused Sheeran of copying elements of the classic in his Grammy-winning track Thinking Out Loud. A federal judge dismissed the case in February.

More recently, Sheeran expanded the list of writers on his current hit Shape of You, adding the names of the songwriters behind TLC's classic track No Scrubs, after fans noted similarities between the two songs.