Good news for Ed Sheeran! After an 11-day trial, High Court Judge Antony Zacarolo ruled on Wednesday (April 6) that Ed had ‘neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied’ Sami Chokri’s song, ‘Oh Why.’ Sami, who goes by Sami Switch, claimed his ‘Oh I’ hook was ‘strikingly similar’ to the ‘Oh Why’ that’s featured in Ed’s ‘Shape of You.’
After studying both songs, the judge said, “There were similarities between the one-bar phrase in ‘Shape of You’ and ‘Oh Why,’ but such similarities are only a starting point for a possible infringement of copyright. There are 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.'”
Shape of You was the U.K.’s best-selling song of 2017 and is Spotify’s most-streamed song ever. The song was written by Ed along with Snow Patrol’s John McDaid and producer Steven McCutcheon.
Following the ruling, Ed shared his thoughts in a video which was posted to his Instagram:
“Whilst we’re obviously happy with the result, I feel like claims like this [are] way too common now, and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that 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 nights 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. Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience, and I hope that this ruling means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided. This really does have to end. Hopefully we can all get back to writing songs rather than having to prove that we can write them.”
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And this isn’t the first time Ed was sued over his music – he was sued in 2016 over his single ‘Photograph,’ which was settled out of court and within that same year, he was sued a second time for ‘Thinking Out Loud.’
