Taylor Swift to face trial after judge refuses to dismiss 'Shake It Off' copyright case over 3LW song
The plaintiffs first filed their copyright infringement complaint on Sept. 18, 2017. The defendants moved to dismiss the case on Jan. 3, 2018, noting that "the disputed lyrics lacked originality to enjoy copyright protection." After hearing oral arguments from both sides, the court dismissed the case.
The case cited similarities in both songs' lyrics and structure, particularly the sequence of phrases in 3LW's song such as "playas, they gon' play" ("'cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play" in Swift's tune) followed by "and haters they gonna hate" ("and haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate" in "Shake It Off").
Friday's documents indicate that while the defendants "make some persuasive arguments with regard to why various factors of the respective musical and literary work analyses do objectively distinguish 'Playas' and 'Shake,'" there are still "numerous factors" that don't "eliminate the possibility that there is still a genuine dispute as to the potential substantial similarity between the lyrics and their sequential structure."
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