Taylor Swift will have to convince a jury that she didn’t steal lyrics for her 2014 hit “Shake It Off.”
Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald on Thursday refused the pop star’s request to throw out a lawsuit filed by songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler in 2017.
“Even though there are some noticeable differences between the works, there are also significant similarities in word usage and sequence/structure,” Fitzgerald ruled.
Hall and Butler allege that “Shake It Off” borrows from “Playas Gon’ Play,” a song released by 3LW in 2001 that includes the line “playas, they gonna play” and “haters, they gonna hate.” On her song, Swift sings: “‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”
Swift’s lawyers argued that Hall and Butler can’t “monopolize the idea that players will play and haters will hate.” They said the phrases are “public domain clichés” and the copyright claim was nothing but a “money grab.”
Fitzgerald agreed and dismissed the lawsuit – but a federal appeals court reversed his ruling. He later said the claim is “not factually spurious or farfetched."
“Shake It Off” is credited to Swift as well as Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback (aka Karl Schuster).
No date has been set for a trial.