Artist Sami Chokri had filed a lawsuit against singer Ed Sheeran's 'Shape of You'. It was claimed that the 'Oh I' tune in Sheeran's song was strikingly similar to 'Oh Why' in Chokri's track. However, today Sheeran announced via a statement that he has won the lawsuit.
Singer Ed Sheeran has won the lawsuit filed for allegedly plagiarising artist Sami Chokri’s track for his hit song ‘Shape of You’. The case was heard by the High Court on April 5, where Justice Zacaroli said that Sheeran, “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied a phrase from 'Oh Why' when writing 'Shape of You’, according to the Guardian.
As per ETimes, Sheeran and his co-writers, John McDaid and producer Steven McCutcheon had denied copying Chokri’s, who performs under the name Sami Switch, work in 2015. In the claim, both Chokri and co-writer Ross O’Donoghue said that Sheeran’s ‘Oh I’ hook tune was similar to ‘Oh Why’ from their track.
The lawsuit began a hearing in 2018 when Sheeran and his co-writers asked the court to declare that there was no infringement of Chokri’s work from their side. Sheeran also claimed that his reputation was being hampered due to the allegations.
Sheeran issued a statement following the hearing, "I am obviously happy with the result. I feel that claims like these are all too common now. It has become a culture now where settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there is no base to the claim. It is really damaging to the songwriting industry. There are only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music and co-incidence is bound to happen with 60,000 songs released every day on Spotify and 22 million songs a year. There are only 12 notes available."
He further added, "I don't want to take any pain or hurt suffered from both sides of this case. But I just want to say that I am not an entity. I'm not a corporation. I am a human being. I am a father, a husband, a son and lawsuits are not a pleasant experience. I hope that in the future, baseless claims like these can be avoided. This really does have to end,"
He went on to thank all those who supported him during the court hearings and said, "Hopefully we can all get back to writing songs than having to prove we can write them.”
Chokri and O’Donoghue had claimed for “copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement”. Sheeran had denied saying that he does not ‘borrow’ ideas from unknown songwriters without acknowledging them and insisted that he tries to be completely fair in crediting people who contributed.
‘Shape of You’ was released from Sheeran’s third studio album ‘Divide’ and was an instant hit in January 2017.