Ed Sheeran has won a high court battle over whether he plagiarized another artist’s track for the most streamed song in Spotify’s history and his single hit Shape of You.
Last month at the trial, Ed Sheeran and his Shape Of You producer Steve McCutcheon and co-writers Snow Patrol’s John McDaid faced accusations that they ripped off the 2015 song Oh Why by Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue.
On Wednesday, Mr. Justice Zacaroli concluded that ED Sheeran “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied a phrase from Oh Why when writing Shape of You.
The judge said that while there were “similarities” between the one-bar phrase that repeats the words “Oh why” in Chokri’s song and the repetition of “Oh I” in Sheeran’s, such similarities are “only a starting point” for a copyright infringement claim. There are also “significant differences” between the phrases in the songs.
In a video on Instagram shared with his millions of followers, the singer said: “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 is no basis for the claim, and it’s damaging to the songwriting industry.”
Shape Of You, which Ed-Sheeran said he had initially been envisaged being performed by Rihanna or Little Mix, was a worldwide hit, becoming the bestselling song of 2017 in the UK.