Taylor Swift seeks to dismiss Shake It Off copyright suit
Singer Taylor Swift’s lawyers have requested a federal judge to drop a copyright lawsuit against her, arguing that the phrase “players gonna play and haters gonna hate” is a cliche that should be in the public domain.
Songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who co-wrote the track Playas Gon’ Play for the girl band 3LW filed a case against Swift, alleging lifting the lyrics from the song.
The chorus of 2001 song includes the phrase, ‘Playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate.’
Hall and Butler claimed that Swift’s 2014 song, Shake It Off, infringed on their lyrics with its chorus — ‘Players gonna play, play, play, play, play, and haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.’
According to Variety, the 28-year-old singer’s legal counsel moved to dismiss the case, saying, “There can be no copyright protection in ‘playas, they gonna play and haters, they gonna hate,’ because it would impermissibly monopolise the idea that players will play and haters will hate.”
The lawyers of the singer further added, “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.”
The lawyers also said the phrase is one of the “public domain cliches” and argued that courts have consistently
SONGWRITERS SEAN HALL AND NATHAN BUTLER FILED A CASE AGAINST SINGER TAYLOR SWIFT, ALLEGING THAT SHE LIFTED THE LYRICS FROM THEIR SONG, PLAYAS GON’ PLAY
maintained that short phrases like these cannot be a subject to copyright. In a footnote, they also cited numerous other references to “players” and “haters” in pop culture, including the 1977 song Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.