Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You song at the centre of his copyright court battle has earned him and his co-writers £5million a year, the High Court was told yesterday.

The figure would have been higher but nearly 10 per cent of payments from 2017 No1 hit Shape Of You have been frozen.

The Performing Rights Society suspended certain payments when the dispute began in 2018.

But revenues from streaming services could not be targeted.

Songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue claim the ‘Oh I’ hook in Sheeran’s hit copies part of their song Oh Why, which was released two years earlier. 

However, a music expert told the court yesterday that Shape Of You has ‘distinctive differences’.

Forensic musicologist Anthony Ricigliano said it was unlikely that any similarities between the two songs ‘result from copying’.

But another musicologist Christian Siddell said: ‘The possibility of independent creation is… highly improbable’. 

Sheeran and his co-writers deny allegations of copying. The case continues.