Taylor Swift Appeals Over Decision On Allowing Trial For Stolen Lyrics Claim

Popular award-winning singer and songwriter Taylor Swift has requested the courts to dismiss the stolen lyrics claim for the 2014 track “Shake It Off.” The singer was accused of stealing the lyrics of her “Shake It Off” song from 3LW’s song called “Playas Gon’ Play”; and her legal team even approached Judge Michael Fitzgerald of the US District Court for the Central District of California to reconsider the decision to refuse them.

According to Page Six, Taylor Swift’s attorney Pete Anderson spoke out and said, “Plaintiffs could sue everyone who writes, sings, or publicly says ‘players gonna play’ and ‘haters gonna hate’.” He said that the lyrics are in the public domain and are “unprotected”, therefore, “to permit that is unprecedented and cheats the public domain.”

This is nothing new, as this lawsuit had initially been filed back in 2017 by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who were sure that Taylor Swift stole their lyrics.

The court document states, “It is essential to distinguish between the protected and unprotected material in a plaintiff’s work. Doing so here leaves only this similarity: both works use versions of two short public domain phrases — ‘players gonna play’ and ‘haters gonna hate’ — that are free for everyone to use, and two other but different tautologies that plaintiffs claim share the same underlying general idea or concept. The presence of versions of the two short public domain statements and two other tautologies in both songs… simply does not satisfy the extrinsic test.”

Why not listen to the songs yourself and see what you think? Have a listen and check out the short clip on Adrienne Bailon speaking about the claim, as she was a member of the group 3LW, who sang the song “Playas Gon’ Play.”

Listen to 3LW “Playas Gon’ Play”:

Listen to Taylor Swift “Shake It Off”:

Watch Adrienne Bailon, vocalist of the disbanded group 3LW, talk about the stolen lyrics claim: