Musician Ed Sheeran has won a copyright lawsuit over his song “Shape of You”. UK High Court ruled on Wednesday (6 April) that he had not plagiarised Sami Chokri's "Oh Why".

Sheeran was accused by the plaintiffs that he listened to the song "Oh Why" which was released in 2015 before writing "Shape of You" which was released in 2017. This is because there are similarities between the one-bar phrases in the two songs.

Judge Antony Zacaroli said Sheeran neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied Chokri's work. The similarity is only a starting point for a copyright infringement claim. After studying the two songs, Zacaroli concluded that there are differences in the parts of the two songs. In particular, there is strong evidence that the phrase "Oh I" in "Shape of You" is not from the song "Oh Why". Zacaroli said that Sheeran had not heard the song "Oh Why".

Following the ruling, Sheeran posted a video on Instagram containing a joint statement representing Snow Patrol songwriter and vocalist Johnny McDaid, as well as producer Steven McCutcheon.

"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 a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there is no basis for the claim," Sheeran said.

"It’s really damaging to the songwriting industry," he continued.

Sheeran also explained that there are only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music and coincidences are bound to happen.

"Coincidences are bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released a day on Spotify and there are only 12 notes that are available," Sheeran explained.

Sheeran is credited as a writer of "Shape of You" alongside Johnny McDaid and Steven McCutcheon.

Sheeran said he and his “Shape of You” co-writers went to court to stand up for what they thought was right, that is standing up for his and fellow songwriters’ works. It is about honesty, not money.

This is not the first time Sheeran faced a copyright infringement lawsuit. He faced similar lawsuits over the song “Photograph” in 2016 and “Thinking Out Loud” in 2018. The singer said that he regretted settling the “Photograph” case for £15 million or approximately $20 million in 2017, as it led to “the floodgates” being opened and resulted in many similar claims.

“I didn't play 'Photograph' for ages after that. I just stopped playing it. I felt weird about it, it kind of made me feel dirty,” Sheeran said, adding, “And we've now got to a point where we actually own all of the song again.”

He hopes that cases with baseless claims like this can be avoided in the future, so that everyone can get back to writing songs, rather than having to prove they can write them. To protect against future claims, Sheeran said he now films all of his songwriting sessions.