The singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran has hit out at “baseless claims” of plagiarism after winning a copyright battle in a U.K. court over his hit single “Shape of You,” the only song to top 3 billion streams on Spotify. Sheeran and his two co-writers had been accused of copying parts of 2015’s ’“Oh Why,” by Sami Switch, but a judge rejected the claim on Wednesday. In a video posted on Instagram, Sheeran complained of a trend in which claims are “made with the idea that a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there’s no basis for the claim.” He went on: “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. That’s 22 million songs a year and there’s only 12 notes that are available... I hope that this ruling, it means that in the future baseless claims like this can be avoided. This really does have to end.”
