Ed Sheeran wins legal battle

Ed Sheeran has won a long legal battle over copyright claim on his hit Shape of You. Two songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue, had alleged that Ed Sheeran’s 2017 hit, infringed on particular lines and phrases from their 2015 track, Oh Why. Sam Chokri had claimed an Oh I hook in Shape Of You was strikingly similar to an Oh Why refrain in their track.

During the trial Sheeran had denied he borrowed ideas from unknown songwriters without acknowledgement and insisted he always tried to be completely fair in crediting people who contributed to his albums.

Shape Of You was a worldwide hit and became the best-selling song of 2017 in the UK and the most streamed track in Spotify’s history. Ed Sheeran and his co-writers John McDaid and Steven McCutcheon, were accused of ripping off Oh Why, however, in a ruling on April 6, Justice Zacaroli concluded that Sheeran ‘neither deliberately nor subconsciously’ copied a phrase from the track when writing Shape of You. In a statement released after the verdict, Sheeran and his co-writers said the case was “more than just a financial cost”.