Taylor Swift 'Shake It Off' Lawsuit To Go Forward In LA
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — A Los Angeles federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a pair of songwriters who claim Taylor Swift lifted lyrics from their 2001 recording as the basis for her 2014 hit "Shake It Off."
Songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler alleged in a 2017 lawsuit that Swift lifted lyrics from 3LW's 2001 recording "Playas Gon' Play.
3LW's song includes the lyrics "Playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate," while Swift's "Shake It Off" has the lyrics: "Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate."
U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald dismissed the claim in 2018, finding that the disputed lyrics lacked sufficient originality to merit copyright protection.
The following year, an appeals court overturned the Los Angeles federal judge's decision.
In his ruling Wednesday, Fitzgerald refused to toss the case.
The judge wrote that Hall and Butler "have sufficiently alleged a protectable selection and arrangement or a sequence of creative expression" and Swift's "use as alleged is similar enough" to survive the motion to dismiss.
According to the lawsuit, more than 9 million copies of the song had been sold as of the filing date, along with 6 million copies of Swift's album "1989," and the video for the song had nearly 2.4 billion views on YouTube.
The plaintiffs seek a share of the profits from Swift's hit.
Swift's representatives called the lawsuit "a ridiculous claim and nothing more than a money grab. The law is simple and clear. They do not have a case."
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)