Ed Sheeran faces $20 million 'Photograph' suit led by 'Blurred Lines' lawyers

LOS ANGELES -- Two songwriters are claiming that Ed Sheeran's "Photograph" is a copy -- and they've enlisted a legal team with a track record for proving just that.

Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard have filed a $20 million copyright infringement lawsuit against the British singer-songwriter, whose 2014 hit they claim is largely a "note-for-note copying" of "Amazing," a song they wrote in 2009 and recorded by X Factor winner Matt Cardle in 2012. 

They have have hired attorney Richard Busch, who successfully represented Marvin Gaye's family in the now-infamous "Blurred Lines" trial, which found Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams guilty of copying Gaye's "Got to Give It Up." 

In their lawsuit filed Wednesday in a Los Angeles district court, Harrington and Leonard's lawyers argue that "Photograph" -- which has sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide and was featured in the film "Me Before You" -- is "extrinsically and intrinsically strikingly similar" to "Amazing." 

They point specifically to the chorus sections, which they say share 39 identical notes, matching in "pitch, rhythmic duration and placement in the measure."

"In other words," they wrote, "out of the 61 notes in the chorus section of 'Photograph,' approximately 70 percent of the notes are identical to or substantially related to notes in the chorus section of 'Amazing.' Further, 64 percent of the notes in the chorus section of 'Photograph' are identical to the notes in the chorus section of 'Amazing.'"

They continued: "The sheer magnitude, and verbatim copying of 'Amazing'... is so blatant in both scale and degree, that it raises this matter to an unusual level of striking similarity where access is presumed."

Leonard and Harrington are seeking damages, which they claim exceed $20 million. 

A representative for Sheeran has not responded to Mashable's request for comment. 

The news comes shortly after Justin Bieber and Skrillex were hit with a similar lawsuit for "Sorry." In that lawsuit, singer-songwriter White Hinterland claimed that their chart-topping hit sampled her 2014 song "Ring the Bell" without permission. One day later, Skrillex refuted the claims on Twitter, suggesting that the vocal hook in question was actually his own creation, a result of manipulating the original vocals. 

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