Taylor Swift faces ‘Shake It Off’ copyright suit after Ninth Circuit revives case
Taylor Swift will once again face claims that she ripped off some of the lyrics for her hook in the 2014 hit “Shake It Off”, after the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit revived a copyright lawsuit over the song.
Songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler sued Swift in 2017, claiming that the “Player’s gonna play, play, play, play, play/And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate” refrain in “Shake It Off” was derived from their 2001 song “Playas Gon’ Play”.
Swift was initially able to avoid the claims after the US District Court for the Central District of California dismissed the suit on summary judgment.
Hall and Butler’s song, performed by the girl vocal group 3LW, featured the lyric “Playas, they gonna play/And haters, they gonna hate”.
In its decision, the district court ruled that the lyrics were, in fact, not original or creative enough to enjoy copyright protection.
The two songwriters will now get another chance to pursue their claims after the Ninth Circuit found that the district court had inappropriately “constituted itself as the final judge of the worth of an expressive work”.
“Originality, as we have long recognised, is normally a question of fact,” the Ninth Circuit said.
The ruling cited late US Supreme Court justice Oliver Holmes, who wrote in 1903 that: “It would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations, outside of the narrowest and most obvious limits.”
Applying this principle to musical copyright, the district court erred in establishing a lack of originality as a matter of law, the Ninth Circuit said.
Hall and Butler were not the first to sue Swift over the phrase. As previously reported by WIPR, singer Jesse Braham took the pop star to court in 2015, claiming infringement of his copyright for his track “Haters Gone Hate”.
Braham uploaded the song to YouTube in 2013, and later claimed on Twitter that “Shake It Off” wouldn’t exist without his own work.
The singer had been looking for $42 million as compensation for the alleged infringement, but his suit was dismissed by the Central California district court.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.
Today's top stories:
TM-intensive industries contribute 22% of GDP in LatAm countries
Already registered?
Login to your account
If you don't have a login or your access has expired, you will need to purchase a subscription to gain access to this article, including all our online content.
For more information on individual annual subscriptions for full paid access and corporate subscription options please contact us.
To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.
For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk