Taylor Swift has been accused of stealing lyrics from the 3LW girl group for one of her biggest hits from 2014 “Shake It Off”.
The “Playas Gon’ Hate” songwriters, Sean Hall and Nathan Butler filed a case against Swift in 2017 as the 2001 song uses the phrases such as “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” just like the chorus in “Shake It Off”.
The case was dismissed by US district judge Michael W Fitzgerald in early 2018 as he found the lyrics too bland “ [it] lacks the modicum of originality and creativity required for copyright protection” and carried on with listing 13 other songs that use similar phrases.
However, Hall and Butler weren’t happy with the final decree and a federal appeals court overturned that decision a year later.
On Thursday, December 9th, judge Fitzgerald denied the Grammy winner request to dismiss the case and carry on with the accusation as according to Billboard he explains “Even though there are some noticeable differences between the works, there are also significant similarities in word usage and sequence/structure.”
The lead song of the 1989 album was a great success for Swift it debuted at No1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and stayed there for 50 weeks on the singles chart.
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Words by: Martyna Rozenbajgier
Sub-editor: Susanna Borio
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