Ed Sheeran and co-writers John McDaid and producer Steven McCutcheon were awarded more than £900,000 in legal costs over copyright accusations on their song 'Shape of You' that was released in 2017. These accusations were made by Sami Chokri and Ross O'Donoghue.
The grime artist pair alleged that the copyright on their song 'Oh Why' was infringed. The contention on the striking similarity between the hook phrase "Oh I" in Shape of You to the hook in Chokri's song "Oh Why".
In May 2018, Sheeran filed a lawsuit, seeking the high court to rule that they had not violated Chokri and O'Donoghue's copyright. Justice Zacarouli decided that Sheeran "neither deliberately nor subconsciously" copied the hook phrase from Chokri's song.
A counterclaim was raised by Chokri which was dismissed; and Zacaroli declared that there was no copyright infringement. To prove copyright infringement, Chokri's team had to prove that Sheeran had listened to his song 'Oh Why', which they were unable to establish.
After the ruling, Chokri and O'Donoghue's lawyers said that the claimants should have to pay their own legal costs. But in a recent ruling Zacaroli ordered an interim payment of £916,200 to Sheeran's team. Considering the claimant's success, the legal costs are paid by the defendants.
Sheeran denied any sort of "borrowing" or copying of lyrics and music from lesser known and unknown songwriters. Insisting on always making effort to credit contributors to his music, he added that, "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."
In a video message Sheeran criticized the rise of such copyright claims and said it has become a "culture" in the songwriting industry which is detrimental for the growth of the pop music industry.
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