Singer Ed Sheeran on Wednesday won the Shape of You copyright case against Sami Chokri, who had accused the British singer of plagiarism. The judge said that Sheeran had not plagiarised the 2015 song Oh Why by Chokri. The victory in the four-year-old copyright case means that Sheeran will now be eligible for all the royalty money generated by his hit Shape Of You song.
Judge Antony Zacaroli said that the singer-songwriter had ‘neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied’ Chokri’s song.
26-year-old Chokri said that he had sent the track to the Sheeran’s ‘circle’ because he was keen to work with him. However, he said that he later heard it on Shape Of You.
Reacting to the ruling, Sheeran posted a video on Instagram saying that such ‘baseless’ claims were ‘way too common.’
Sheeran lamented that it was now an established 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.’
“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,” he added.
Shape of You by Sheeran continues to remain the most played song in the history of Spotify. But despite the song’s unprecedented popularity in 2017, its royalties have remained frozen since Chokri and his co-writer Ross O’Donoghue staked a copyright claim in 2018. This had prompted the Shape Of You songwriters to approach the court.
Ed’s been dealing with a lawsuit recently and he wanted to share a few words about it all pic.twitter.com/hnKm7VFcor
— Ed Sheeran HQ (@edsheeran) April 6, 2022
It’s believed that Sheeran now stands to gain a whopping £20m from the royalties, frozen up until now.
Meanwhile, Sheeran has said that he hoped baseless claims can be avoided in the future.