Taylor Swift Wants Lawsuit Over 'Shake It Off' Lyrics Dismissed
Taylor Swift and her legal team are aiming to have the lawsuit over the rights to the lyrics of "Shake It Off" dismissed.
Last Wednesday, Swift's lawyers appealed to the federal judge to have the copyright lawsuit over the lyrics of her hit song, "Shake It Off," dismissed. The phrase in question is, "players gonna play and haters gonna hate," Variety reports.
According to Swift's legal team, the lyric line is too much of a cliché in the production of music and that it should remain free to the public. Therefore, the concept of players playing and haters hating cannot be under a copyright.
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"There can be no copyright protection in 'playas, they gonna play and haters, they gonna hate,' because it would impermissibly monopolize the idea that players will play and haters will hate," Swift's lawyers argued in a statement.
The "Gorgeous" singer's legal team also described the lawsuit's claim to be lacking value.
"Plaintiffs' claim to being the only ones in the world who can refer to players playing and haters hating is frivolous... Providing a copyright monopoly in the phrase would prevent others from sharing the idea that players play and haters hate," Swift's lawyers continued.
To support their grounds, Swift and her legal team provided other songs that had use of the concept of "players" and "haters," TMZ confirmed. Some of those songs are Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" in 1977, and Notorious B.I.G.'s "Playa Hater" back in 1997.
Songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler filed the copyright lawsuit against the "Look What You Made Me Do" singer back in September. It was to gain the rights to the phrase in question over the song they released in 2001 for the girl group 3LW, titled "Playas Gon' Play."
Hall and Butler claimed Swift breached copyright law by using "Players gonna play, play, play, play, play" and "haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate" in her hit song.
