Ed Sheeran wins copyright case

After the ruling, Sheeran said such “baseless” claims “are way too common”.

In a video posted on his social media account, he said there was now a 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,” he said.

“Shape of You” was the UK’s best-selling song of 2017 in the UK and is Spotify’s most-streamed song ever.

During his ruling, Judge Antony Zacaroli ruled that Sheeran had “neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied” Chokri’s song. He acknowledged there were “similarities between the one-bar phrase” in “Shape of You” and “Oh Why”, but said, “such similarities are only a starting point for a possible infringement” of copyright.

After studying the musical elements, he said there were “differences between the relevant parts” of the songs, which “provide compelling evidence that the ‘Oh I’ phrase” in Sheeran’s song “originated from sources other than Oh Why”.

This ruling comes as a huge relief to Ed Sheeran, who took the unusual step of pre-emptively suing Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue in 2018 in an attempt to clear his name.