Ed Sheeran and his \u201cShape of You\u201d co-writers have been awarded over \u00a3900,000 in legal costs after winning their High Court copyright trial earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The British singer-songwriter had been accused of copying parts of his 2017 smash single from Sami Chokri\u2019s 2015 track \u201cOh Why\u201d \u2013 co-written by Ross O\u2019Donoghue. <\/p>\n
Sheeran, along with co-writer John McDaid (of Snow Patrol) and producer Steven McCutcheon, launched legal proceedings in May 2018, asking the High Court to declare they had not plagiarised Chokri and O\u2019Donoghue\u2019s work. <\/p>\n
In April this year, Mr Justice Zacaroli cleared the singer of plagiarism after an 11-day trial at the High Court, noting that Sheeran \u201cneither deliberately nor subconsciously\u201d copied a phrase in the song.<\/p>\n
Following the ruling, lawyers for Chokri and O\u2019Donoghue argued that Mr Sheeran and the other claimants should pay their own legal costs, claiming they had failed to provide documents and demonstrated \u201cawkwardness and opacity\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, in his ruling on Tuesday (21 June), Mr Justice Zacaroli ordered Chokri and O\u2019Donoghue to pay the legal costs of the trial, ordering an interim payment of \u00a3916,200.<\/p>\n
\u201cI consider it is appropriate that the claimants\u2019 success is reflected in an order that their costs are paid by the defendants, without reduction save for that which is made as part of the process of detailed assessment,\u201d Mr Justice Zacaroli said Tuesday. <\/p>\n
The judge dismissed arguments that the defendants would have changed their approach to the case if some documents and explanations about how \u201cShape Of You\u201d was written had been provided earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead,\u201d Mr Justice Zacaroli noted, \u201cthey not only maintained their attack on Mr Sheeran but broadened it by asserting that he was a \u2018magpie\u2019 who habitually misappropriated song ideas from other writers.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A further hearing is expected to assess and finalise the sums.<\/p>\n
During the 11-day trial in central London, Sheeran denied he \u201cborrows\u201d ideas from unknown songwriters without acknowledgement and insisted he \u201calways tried to be completely fair\u201d in crediting people who contribute to his albums.<\/p>\n
In a video statement following his ruling, Sheeran said: \u201cI hope with this ruling, it means in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided. This really does have to end. <\/p>\n
\u201cMe, Johnny and Steve are very grateful for all the support sent to us by fellow songwriters over the last few weeks. Hopefully we can all get back to writing songs, rather than having to prove that we can write them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ed Sheeran and his \u201cShape of You\u201d co-writers have been awarded over \u00a3900,000 in legal costs after winning their High Court copyright trial earlier this year. The British singer-songwriter had been accused of copying parts of his 2017 smash single from Sami Chokri\u2019s 2015 track \u201cOh Why\u201d \u2013 co-written by Ross O\u2019Donoghue. Sheeran, along with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n