‘Claims Like These Common Now’: Ed Sheeran Wins ‘Shape of You’ Copyright Case

The judge held that Ed Sheeran “neither deliberately nor subconsciously" copied Sam Chokri.

Ed Sheeran wins copyright case involving Shape of You.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran won his copyright battle over his 2017 hit ‘Shape of You’. A judge in a London High Court ruled that Sheeran’s song doesn’t have similarities to the 2015 track ‘Oh Why’ by Sami Chokri.

Chokri, who performs under the name Sami Switch, had alleged that the ‘Oh I’ hook in Sheeran’s song was “strikingly similar” to the ‘Oh Why’ part in his song. Judge Antony Zacaroli held that Sheeran “neither deliberately nor subconsciously" copied Chokri.

Sheeran argued that both songs used a “pentatonic pattern” which is common in music and he illustrated his point by singing part of Nina Simone’s song ‘Feeling Good’. Sheeran also told the Court that he “always tried to be completely fair” while adding credits for contributors if he ever 'borrowed' any ideas.

Ed Sheeran’s song ‘Shape of You’ released in 2017 and the musician won a Grammy for ‘Best Pop Solo Performance’ for the song.

After the court’s ruling, Sheeran shared a statement on Instagram, and said that ‘baseless’ claims like these ‘are way too common’. He captioned the post, "Dealing with a lawsuit recently. We won and I wanted to share a few words about it all."

He added that there is now 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 basis for the claim”.

The singer added, “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. That's 22 million songs a year and there's only 12 notes that are available.”