Ed Sheeran and his team have officially won the ongoing, high-profile copyright case filed over his 2017 hit track “Shape of You.”
Artist Sami Chokri, AKA Sami Switch, filed a claim against Sheeran for suspected plagiarism of his 2015 song “Oh Why.”
The trial lasted 11 days, and the judge ruled that Sheeran had “neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied” Chokri’s song and that while there were “similarities between the one-bar phrase” they were “only a starting point for a possible infringement” of copyright.
Sheeran posted a brief video on Instagram sharing the news, identifying a present culture in the entertainment world “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.”
“It’s really damaging to the songwriting industry,” said Sheeran. “There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music.”
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