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Mark Hill quoted in the Daily Mail discussing Ed Sheeran’s copyright court case win

Ed Sheeran has called for an end to "baseless" copyright claims damaging the songwriting industry after the High Court cleared him of plagiarising a song for his bestselling track Shape of You.

The Daily Mail publishes Partner Mark Hill's comments: 'The judge has finally ruled on Ed Sheeran's 'traumatising' trial finding that the singer-songwriter had not plagiarised the 2015 song Oh Why by Sami Chokri.

'The judge ruled that Sheeran had 'neither deliberately nor subconsciously copied' Chokri's song and that although there were similarities between the one-bar phrase in Shape of You and Oh Why, there were clearly differences between the relevant parts of the songs. As Sheeran has said today, 'there's only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music.' This may be true, but one thing is for sure: this will not be the last claim of plagiarism we see from the music industry.

Mark continues to say: 'In terms of the legalities of these cases, they are always highly complex. Conclusions are never straightforward because the facts and decisions differ so greatly from case to case.

'Part of the game today for the music industry is knowing how to deal with claims, perhaps by looking for an out of court settlement rather than a provable case for Court.'

Mark's comments were first published in The Daily Mail online. His comments are also included in a later piece also published by The Daily Mail.

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