Ed Sheeran has won a copyright dispute in the English High Court for his 2017 hit “Shape of You”. Following a high-profile trial, Sheeran and his co-writers, Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol and producer Steve Mac, were found not to have copied Sami Chokri’s 2015 song “Oh Why,” according to a judge today.

According to the judge, Sheeran “never purposefully nor unconsciously” borrowed a line from “Oh Why” when writing “Shape of You,” as Sheeran stated during his trial.

Ed Sheeran’s Statement In A Twitter Post

Sheeran said in a video statement on Twitter, “While we’re obviously happy with the result, I feel like claims like this are way too common now and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court. Even if there’s no base for the claim. It’s really damaging to the songwriting industry. There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotify.” 

He went on a to say: “I don’t want to take anything away from the pain and hurt suffered by both sides of this case, but I just want to say that I’m not an entity. I’m not a corporation.” He added, I’m a human being. I’m a father, I’m a husband,  I’m a son. Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience and I hope with this ruling it means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided.”

Ed Sheeran Sued by Chokri and his Co-writer

Chokri and his co-writer Ross O’Donoghue sued Sheeran, McDaid, and Mac for copyright infringement. He sued them over purported similarities between the two songs. The writers of “The Shape of You” filed a lawsuit in 2018. He sought the High Court to rule that they had not infringed on the copyright. Two months later, Chokri and O’Donoghue filed a counterclaim.

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