I liked this song better when it's sung by Tom Petty and called "Won't Back Down."

Moving this video to oritteropo's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

*discard

Discarding this post - discard requested by original submitter oritteropo.

Digging up an old post because I just saw this:
http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/01/tom-petty-awarded-songwriting-royalties-for-sam-smiths-stay-with-me/

"Tom Petty awarded songwriting royalties for Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me”"

“Recently the publishers for the song ‘I Won’t Back Down,’ written by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, contacted the publishers for ‘Stay With Me,’ written by Sam Smith, James Napier and William Phillips, about similarities heard in the melodies of the choruses of the two compositions. Not previously familiar with the 1989 Petty/Lynne song, the writers of ‘Stay With Me’ listened to ‘I Won’t Back Down’ and acknowledged the similarity.

“Although the likeness was a complete coincidence, all involved came to an immediate and amicable agreement in which Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne are now credited as co-writers of ‘Stay With Me’ along with Sam Smith, James Napier and William Phillips.”

Wow, that is such bullshit.

Not a fan of Sam Smith, but there's no way Petty should get a songwriting credit for that.

The tempo and tone and key have completely changed.

Granted, the songs use a similar chord progression... but so what? There are only a limited number of chord progressions that sound musical, so of course you'll see repeats.

While I agree, this may have been the Smart Move™ on Sam Smith's part to avoid a lengthy court battle over royalties and compensation and instead to negotiate a percentage through the writing credit - on the balance of probabilities in a court room a jury may well have found in Tom Petty's favour even if it was chance/coincidence.
But whatever. Sam Smith has a career ahead of him and Tom Petty has plenty of money.