After achieving victory in a copyright lawsuit in April, pop star Ed Sheeran received a payment of $1.1 million.
Following the earlier decision that the singer didn’t plagiarize a Sami Chokri song to create his 2017 hit “Shape Of You,” a British judge declared Tuesday that Sheeran will get the sum covering 90% of his legal fees, according to Variety.
“The starting point is to identify the winners and losers in the action because the general rule is that the unsuccessful party pays the costs of the successful party,” Judge Antony Zacaroli said.
“There is no dispute as to this: [Sheeran] undoubtedly won and won on every substantial point.”
Chokri claimed that Sheeran plagiarized his 2015 song “Oh Why” for “Shape of You,” which reached No. 1 in several nations, including the US.
With John McDaid and Steven McCutcheon, the 31-year-old Englishman Ed Sheeran is credited as co-writing “Shape of You.”
Following the trial win in April, Sheeran described the accusation as being “really damaging to the songwriting industry.”
“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,” Sheerhan said at the time in a video.