Ed Sheeran has been awarded over $1.1 million in legal fees following his “Shape of You” copyright case.
According to Rolling Stone, Sheeran won the copyright battle in England for his 2017 single “Shape of You” back in April. A judge ruled that Sheeran and his co-defendants, songwriters Steven McCutcheon and Johnny McDaid, did not plagiarized Sami Chokri’s 2015 song “Oh Why.”
A different judge will oversee and assess the costs and damages that need to be paid. The judge could also decide to dismiss costs and damages, which would lower how much Chokri and O’Donoghue owe.
According to RS, Ed Sheeran said in a video statement via Twitter, “While 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’s no base 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.”
He continued, “I don’t want to take anything away from the pain and hurt suffered by both sides of this case, but I just want to say that I’m not an entity. I’m not a corporation. I’m a human being. I’m a father. I’m a husband. I’m a son. Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience and I hope with this ruling it means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided.”