After being accused of ripping off 3LW's 'Playas Gon' Play,' Taylor Swift shot again on the plagiarism allegations by saying the lyrics to 'Shake It Off' have been her personal creation.
“The lyrics to ‘Shake It Off’ have been written fully by me,” Taylor Swiftstated in a sworn declaration filed Monday (Aug. 8), in keeping with Billboard. Taylor, 32, denied stealing the lyrics to her 2014 hit music from 3LW’s 2001 observe, “Playas Gon’ Play,” and regarded to finish the continued lawsuit. “In writing the lyrics,” she stated, “I drew partly on experiences in my life and, specifically, unrelenting public scrutiny of my private life, ‘clickbait’ reporting, public manipulation, and different types of unfavorable private criticism which I discovered I simply wanted to shake off and deal with my music.”
Sean Corridor and Nathan Butler, the songwriters behind “Playas Gon’ Play,” filed a copyright infringement lawsuit towards Swift in 2017. Within the 2001 music, the road goes “playas, they gonna play” and “haters, they gonna hate”; Swift’s music famously goes, “‘Trigger the gamers gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” In her submitting, she dismissed the copying allegations by saying the phrases have been so easy that they have been commonplace.
“I recall listening to phrases about gamers play and haters hate acknowledged collectively by different youngsters whereas attending college in Wyomissing Hills and in highschool in Hendersonville,” Swift wrote in her declaration. “These phrases have been akin to different generally used sayings like ‘don’t hate the playa, hate the sport,’ ‘take a chill capsule,’ and ‘say it, don’t spray it.'” She additionally wrote, per Billboard, that she heard the phrase in “many songs, movies, and different works,” even citing a 2013 efficiency the place she wore a t-shirt she purchased from City Outfitters that had the saying – “haters gonna hate” – on the entrance.
“I used to be struck by messages that individuals liable to doing one thing will do it, and one of the simplest ways to beat it's to shrug it off and preserve dwelling,” Swift stated. Taylor additionally wrote that she couldn’t have stolen from 3LW as a result of, till the 2017 lawsuit, she didn’t know they existed. “Till studying about Plaintiffs’ declare in 2017, I had by no means heard the music Playas Gon’ Play and had by no means heard of that music or the group 3LW,” she wrote, including that her mother and father “didn't allow me to observe TRL till I used to be about 13 years previous.
“Not one of the CDs I listened to as a baby, or after that, have been by 3LW,” she added. “I've by no means heard the music ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ on the radio, on tv, or in any movie. The primary time I ever heard the music was after this declare was made.”
“Playas Gon’ Play” reached No. 81 on the Billboard Sizzling 100 and No. 56 on the Sizzling R&B/Hip-Hop charts in June 2001. “It's, sadly, commonplace for successful music to be met by litigants hoping for a windfall primarily based on tenuous claims that their very own music was copied,” Swift’s lawyer, Peter Anderson, wrote within the paperwork. “However even towards that background, Plaintiffs’ declare stands proud as significantly baseless.”
With Monday’s submitting, Swift’s authorized workforce is asking the decide to grant a abstract judgment with out the necessity for a trial. In 2018, a federal decide tossed out the case, stating that the lyrics to “Performs Gon’ Play” weren't distinctive sufficient to be copyrighted since American tradition is “closely seeped within the ideas of gamers, haters, and participant haters.” Nonetheless, in 2019, a federal appeals courtroom on the Ninth Circuit overturned the choice, saying it was dismissed prematurely.
In 2015, R&B artist Jesse Braham (stage title Jesse Graham) sued Taylor, saying she stole lyrics from his 2013 music, “Haters Gone Hate.” Jesse was on the lookout for $42 million, however as The Richest famous, the lawsuit was dismissed for a fourth time in March 2022.