Artist Information Enterprise Information Labels & Publishers Authorized Prime Tales
By Chris Cooke | Printed on Tuesday 13 December 2022
One of many massive ongoing music theft authorized battles has been settled. A deal has been reached between Taylor Swift and songwriters Sean Corridor and Nathan Butler over the lyrical references to playas taking part in and haters hating in her 2014 hit ‘Shake It Off’.
Corridor and Butler accused Swift of ripping off their 2001 music ‘Playas Gon Play’ when she wrote ‘Shake It Off’. The sooner music included the road “the playas gon play/them haters gonna hate”, whereas Swift’s hit famously featured the lyric “the gamers gonna play, play, play, play, play/and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate”.
All through, Swift’s authorized group argued that the notion of gamers taking part in and haters hating is way too generic for lyrics based mostly on stated notion to be protected by copyright in isolation. Initially the decide overseeing the case, Michael W Fitzgerald, agreed with that viewpoint and dismissed Corridor and Butler’s lawsuit because of this. However that call was then overturned on enchantment.
Swift’s legal professionals then tried very laborious certainly to have the case dismissed for a second time, presumably sensing that Fitzgerald was nonetheless of the opinion that Corridor and Butler’s authorized declare was fairly weak. However the decide appeared to conclude that the Swift aspect’s particular arguments hadn’t actually modified, so it could be inappropriate to dismiss for a second time when the upper courtroom had reversed the preliminary dismissal.
This meant that the entire dispute was on account of head to trial early subsequent 12 months. Extra not too long ago Swift herself insisted that she couldn’t presumably have heard ‘Playas Gon Play’ earlier than writing ‘Shake It Off’, as a result of she by no means watched MTV and was primarily into nation music when the previous was launched.
Her legal professionals then tried presenting the sneaky argument that Corridor and Butler didn’t even have the fitting to sue over the alleged lyric theft, as a result of that proper had been assigned to their respective publishers by way of their publishing offers. And the publishers in command of ‘Playas Gon Play’ are additionally the publishers of ‘Shake It Off’, so that they had been clearly not going to tackle the authorized battle on behalf of the writers.
All of these claims would have gotten extra scrutiny had the case acquired correctly to trial. However, alas, that isn’t going to occur. Which is not any enjoyable in any respect.
Yesterday authorized reps for either side advised the courtroom that they now supported an order “dismissing this motion, in its entirety, with prejudice and with plaintiffs, on the one hand, and defendants, however, to bear their respective attorneys’ charges and prices”.
And Fitzgerald then issued an order stating: “Pursuant to the events’ stipulation, this motion is hereby dismissed, in its entirety and with prejudice, plaintiffs and defendants to bear their respective legal professional’s charges and price”.
For sure, we don’t presently have any details about what deal has been finished, nor whether or not Corridor and Butler will obtain damages, or songwriting credit on and future royalties from ‘Shake It Off’.
Usually talking the courts within the US and UK have been narrowing the scope of song-theft authorized claims in recent times, seeming very nervous to grant copyright safety to quick commonplace musical segments, and customarily setting the bar fairly excessive on the subject of proving that the creators of a brand new music had entry to an older music.
That stated, it could have been fascinating to get full courtroom scrutiny on this case, centred because it was on lyrics slightly than a musical composition.
