Ed Sheeran took to twitter to declare, “I hope that this ruling means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided.
A High Court judge ruled that the singer had not copied part of his hit, Shape of You, from Oh Why, by Sami Chokri.
Far from the first time Ed Sheeran and other pop stars have faced copyright claims. Recently Katy Perry won a case on appeal after a rapper said she had plagiarised an eight-note riff for her 2013 hit Dark Horse. Sam Smith and Normani as well as Dua Lipa also faced law suits for their hit songs.
Sheeran took legal action after Switch (Sami Chokri) and fellow songwriter Ross O’Donoghue requested to be included to the songwriting credits for “Shape of You”, which is the most streamed song ever on Spotify.
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However, the judge ruled that Sheeran would be justified in thinking their request “was a tactic designed to extract a settlement” – in other words, money and/or a credit without going to court.
Sheeran said:
“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 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. 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.”