A US district judge has ruled that Taylor Swift will face jury trial over accusations that the singer ripped off the chorus to her single “Shake It Off” from two songwriters.
In 2018, Sean Hall and Nathan Butler alleged that the chorus to “Shake If Off”, which saw Swift sing that “players gonna play, play, play, play, play” and “haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate”, infringed on the copyright of a track they wrote for the defunct girl group 3LW in 2001.
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“Playas Gon’ Play” by 3LW featured the lyrics “Playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate.”
At the time, Swift’s defence lawyers claimed that the concept of players playing and haters hating is “public domain cliches,” citing a number of tracks by artists including Fleetwood Mac and The Notorious BIG, who also used variations of the phrases.
However, on Thursday (9 December), Judge Michael W Fitzgerald denied the 31-year-old singer’s request to dismiss the case.
According to reports the judge said: “Even though there are some noticeable differences between the works, there are also significant similarities in word usage and sequence/structure.”
“Although defendants’ experts strongly refute the implication that there are substantial similarities, the court is not inclined to overly credit their opinions here,” the judge said.
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He added that Swift’s attorneys made “persuasive arguments” to have the case dismissed, but it was not enough.
Despite a district judge dismissing Hall and Butler’s lawsuit in February 2018, the case was revived by a federal appeals court, which was determined a jury should decide a verdict as opposed to a sole individual.
Citing a 1903 ruling by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, appeals court judges claimed it was “a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges” of copyright claims, and that it should be the public who ultimately determine a verdict.
In 2019, a representative for Swift said: “Mr Hall is incorrect. These men are not the originators, or creators, of the common phrases ‘players’ or ‘haters’ or combinations of them. They did not invent these common phrases nor are they the first to use them in a song.”
“We are confident the true writers of ‘Shake It Off’ will prevail again. Their claim is not a crusade for all creatives, it is a crusade for Mr Hall’s bank account,” the representative added.
“Shake It Off” debuted at No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and spent 50 weeks on the singles chart. It is the lead song from Swift’s album 1989.
Photo Credit: Getty
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