Roger Daltrey is "glad" Ed Sheeran won his 'Shape of You' copyright case.
Roger Daltrey shared his thoughts on 'ridiculous' copyright cases in music
The 31-year-old pop star was taken to court by grime artist Sami Chokri, who claimed that the melody of the 2017 smash hit is "strikingly similar" to that of his 2015 song 'Oh Why', but a judge ruled earlier this month that Ed and his collaborators, Johnny McDaid and Steven McCutcheon, had not plagiarised the earlier hit.
Judge Antony Zacaroli acknowledged there were "similarities between the one-bar phrase" in 'Shape of You' and 'Oh Why' but said "such similarities are only a starting point for a possible infringement" of copyright.
The Who frontman, 78, has branded the accusations "ridiculous" and says anyone taking another artist to court over similar "patterns" in their music is on the make.
In an interview with The Independent, Roger said: “When you listen to music, there are patterns of music that are always going to be there. So you write a few different lyrics on top of it, don’t mean to say you’ve stolen it... It’s ridiculous. It's just people trying to make money out of success and I’m glad Ed won.”
In fact, the 'Pinball Wizard' hitmaker believes the entire music industry has been "stolen" by streaming platforms, while he lambasted record labels for doing very little despite earning megabucks from their artists.
He bemoaned: "Musicians cannot earn a living in the record industry anymore.
“That is ridiculous, and they’re being robbed blind by streaming and the record companies, because the old deals with record companies that existed in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, they’re still working on the same percentage breaks. And of course, they don’t do any work. They just press a button and it goes out on digital, whereas before they had to manufacture, they had to distribute, they had to do all that stuff. They’re doing bugger all and taking all the money, and the musicians are getting nothing.”
Roger added: “Our music industry, I think, has been stolen. I think we really do have to be concerned when young musicians can’t earn a living writing music. The streaming companies pay so little in the beginning and then the record companies take 85, 90 per cent of that. You need a billion streams to earn 200 quid. That’s the reality. We’ve given our music industry to a lot of foreign-owned companies, and the money’s not coming here anymore. We used to lead the world in that, pay an awful lot of tax. It’s terrible.”
Tagged in The Who Roger Daltrey Ed Sheeran