Unshakable Lawsuit for Taylor

In 2017, Taylor Swift had a lawsuit filed against her concerning the lyrics of her hit song, ‘Shake it Off’, released in 2014. The suit lodged by two songwriters from 3LW, Nathan Butler, and Sean Hall in the District Court for Southern California alleged copyright infringement based on the similarity of the lyrics. This lawsuit has been opened again.

Butler and Hall’s song, ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ was a hit during early 2000. The lyrics in question are “Playas, they gonna play / And haters, they gonna hate / Ballers, they gonna ball / Shot callers, they gonna call / That ain’t got nothin’ to do / With me and you / That’s the way it is / That’s the way it is.” Swift had filed for a motion to dismiss saying that the lyrics were not original enough to be protected by the law but the Ninth Circuit has reversed the dismissal.

This dismissal happened because the court could not determine the originality of the song through the lens of the law and asked the case to be taken back to the District Court. Taylor’s other arguments are going to be considered in that court. Her plea, that Taylor’s lawyers gave, is that under the merger doctrine (‘some ideas can only be expressed in a limited number of ways. . . . When the expression is so limited, idea and expression merge’) is not possible since there is only one way to say that people will do what they want to do which was her intention in ‘Shake It Off’.

The court will now evaluate if the case was suitably pleaded and if there is enough evidence to move forward to a trial. The defendants have until September 21 to file their answers. This is not the first time Taylor’s ‘Shake it Off’ came under scrutiny. In 2015, Jesse Braham filed a complaint against Taylor for allegedly taking lyrics from his song, ‘Haters Gonna Hate’, released in 2013