A lawsuit against Taylor Swift — that was originally dismissed in 2018 — has won on appeal and will go to a jury trial. The allegations are that Swift plagiarized the super unique and never said before, “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” …
This lawsuit is going to crash and burn, but it is interesting that it will not go away.
A first judge, Michael W Fitzgerald, used his brain in dismissing the lawsuit in 2018, saying that the lyrics were too “banal” to be copyrighted. He also cited 13 songs that ranged from the freaking 70s to modern music, that featured similar phrasing.
However, ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler appealed that ruling, seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages, found a judge that was dumb enough to push this forward.
In response, a representative for Swift said: “These men are not the originators, or creators, of the common phrases ‘players’ or ‘haters’ or combinations of them. They did not invent these common phrases nor are they the first to use them in a song.”
That is the correct stance. For fvck sake.
The group is not the first to try this money grab.
In November 2015, R&B singer Jessie Braham also alleged that the song plagiarized his 2013 song ‘Haters Gonna Hate’ … which, I mean, is the same name, but again… not original. He was seeking $42M in damages from Swift and thankfully his frivolous lawsuit was also dismissed based on a lack of factual evidence.
Swift asked for this current case to be dismissed… again… but was not granted that request, with the court releasing the statement:
“Even though there are some noticeable differences between the works, there are also significant similarities in word usage and sequence/structure, the court cannot presently determine that no reasonable juror could find substantial similarity of lyrical phrasing, word arrangement, or poetic structure between the two works”.
Apparently, 3LW’s song peaked at No. 21 in England and No. 81 here in the US, but I gotta say, I have never heard of it…
Obviously, Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ was No. 1 in the US and became one the biggest selling singles of her career.
Let’s go to the tape:
First, 3LW…
And then Tay Tay:
A date for the new trial has yet to be announced, and it is pretty shitty that it is even going that far.
Swift probably has to keep fighting it because a settlement could be implied guilt.
Will see how this goes.
