IP disputes take shape in 'Shape of You' singer's life, Pt. 2

The lives of the rich and famous might look fantastic and breezy to outsiders; however, they can come with their own sets of troubles. For example, an everyday blue-collar worker might not face lawsuits worth millions of dollars.

Music star Ed Sheeran faces more than one multi-million dollar lawsuit. He's facing a few, all citing intellectual property issues. In another post, we recently shared how singer/songwriter Sheeran was in the news because a fan of his posted a cover of his song. She was flagged and blocked by Facebook due to copyright matters.

The other copyright cases he's involved in more directly involve Sheeran as the alleged perpetrator of IP laws. Sheeran resolved one recent song dispute, and on the other end of that case is a woman some reality star fans might recognize. She is of Real Housewives fame.

While listening to any pop radio station these days, you are likely to hear one of Sheeran's newest hits called "Shape of You." Listeners apparently noticed similarities between that new song and an older hit R&B song by TLC called "No Scrubs." Maybe Sheeran and his co-writers noticed the similarities as well because they have added the writers of "No Scrubs" to the list of writers of Sheeran's current hit. 

One of those writers earning credit and likely royalties when the song plays is Kandi Burruss from The Real Housewives of Atlanta. While she has been given credit for the song, there are others out there who continue to fight Sheeran over him allegedly ripping off their music. One of the copyright lawsuits seeks $20 million from Sheeran for his alleged IP violation.

A $20 million case shows how valuable intellectual property can be. Not only is monetary value associated with people's ideas, words, music, etc., there is a personal attachment, too. You are not paranoid to want to protect the value of your creations; you are wise. And you are even wiser to seek the assistance of an intellectual property attorney as soon as you can in your creative and/or entrepreneurial process.