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Ed Sheeran’s lawyers complain about length of song-theft lawsuit

By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 11 October 2016

No one likes reading anymore, do they? These days everyone navigates the world via deliberately misleading headlines, enticing but meaningless statistics and the occasional tweeted pie chart. A trend which amply explains recent political developments. But you know who else doesn’t like reading? Ed Sheeran’s legal team.

“[This lawsuit] consists of 44 sprawling pages of prolix, repetitive, argumentative and scandalous allegations”, say they, responding to the previously reported lawsuit accusing the Sheeran of ripping off Matt Cardle track ‘Amazing’ for his hit ‘Photograph’. ‘Prolix’, by the way, means “extended to great, unnecessary, or tedious length”. See, you read something and you learned something. Yay reading!

“It makes sweeping, generalised allegations”, Team Sheeran continue, warming to their theme, but running the risk of going all prolix in a bid to explain why the lawsuit filed against their client is far too vague and waffley to deserve a response. The waffle, the lawyers say, runs for “156 paragraphs, some of which go on for pages and contain upwards of 25 or 30 different sentences – against eleven distinct defendants”.

As previously reported, it is the writers of ‘Amazing’ – Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard – who are suing Sheeran, his song-writing pal Johnny McDaid and all their business partners. The litigation is being led by Richard Busch, the lawyer who represented Marvin Gaye’s family in the headline-grabbing ‘Blurred Lines’ song-theft case, in which his side prevailed of course.

However, according to The Hollywood Reporter, lawyers repping Sheeran and co reckon that they can’t even respond to the specific allegations made by Busch because his legal complaint is, as previously noted, so bloody prolix. “Responding in any meaningful way … is impossible”, they state. “Nor should eleven different defendants be put to the task and expense of having to draft responses to this massively improper pleading”.

Seeking to dismiss Harrington and Leonard’s lawsuit, the defence team note a rule that requires plaintiffs provide a “short and plan” statement outlining their complaint. The lawyers then add that Busch needs to be more specific as to what allegations are being made against each of the eleven defendants. And if those moans aren’t enough to have the plagiarism suit dismissed, Team Sheeran also point out that most of the people and companies involved in this case are British, so why the hell are you suing in California?

Good question Ed. I’m sure Busch is firing up his laptop as we speak to type out a response. Let’s hope it’s nice and prolix.