Taylor Swift appears to be out of the woods in relation to a copyright lawsuit filed against her five years ago.
In 2017, songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler sued Swift for copyright infringement, claiming that Swift’s 2014 hit “Shake It Off” lyrics (“Cause the players going to play, play, play, play/And the haters going to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate”) infringed on the Hall and Butler-penned “Playas Gon’ Play,” released by R&B girl group 3LW in 2000.
“The playas gon’ play/Them haters going to hate,” which peaked at No. 81 on the Billboard Hot 100, featured the lines “The playas gon’ play/And haters, they going to hate.”
Taylor Swift will make her feature film directorial debut following the success of her short film ‘All Too Well.’
A judge dismissed the suit in 2018, saying the lyrics were “too banal” to be stolen, but an appeals panel reopened the case in 2019. Swift had previously requested that the case be dismissed, but a judge refused, citing “enough objective similarities” between the songs.
Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald agreed to dismiss the lawsuit at the request of the case’s parties, according to court documents obtained by USA TODAY on Monday. Fitzgerald dismissed the lawsuit “with prejudice,” which means the dismissal is final and Hall and Butler cannot file a copyright infringement claim again.
Swift, Hall, and Butler representatives have been contacted for further comment.
Swift stated in an August statement that the lyrics to “Shake It Off,” which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, “were entirely written by me” and were inspired by her experiences with “unrelenting public scrutiny of my personal life, ‘clickbait’ reporting, public manipulation, and other forms of negative personal criticism.”
“Until learning about Plaintiffs’ claim in 2017, I had never heard the song ‘Playas Gon’ Play,’ and I had never heard of that song or the group 3LW,” she stated in court.
Swift stated that her parents did not allow her to watch MTV’s “Total Request Live” until she was around 13 years old, and the song debuted on 3LW’s self-titled debut album when she was 10 years old.
Swift is no stranger to copyright disputes involving “Shake It Off.” Another U.S. District Court judge dismissed a separate “Shake It Off” lawsuit in 2014, in which writer Jesse Graham of 2013’s “Haters Gone Hate” claimed Swift stole his lyrics and sought $42 million in damages.
