Taylor Swift has reached an agreement with two songwriters who allege some of the lyrics to her 2014 hit “Shake It Off” were lifted from 3LW’s “Playas Gon’ Play” to drop their copyright lawsuit, which had been going on for five years.
Attorneys for both Swift and songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler participated in a joint filing asking a judge to “[dimiss] this action in its entirety” (via Billboard) ahead of the scheduled trial, which was set to begin in January 2023. The public filings didn’t disclose any terms of the presumed settlement, like a change in songwriting credits or an exchange of money.
Hall and Butler filed the lawsuit back in September 2017, claiming “Shake It Off” stole the lyrics “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” from “Playas Gon’ Play.” US District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald dismissed the case in February 2018, ruling that the lyrics lacked “the modicum of originality and creativity required for copyright protection.” One year later, however, a federal appeals court reversed that ruling, and Swift’s attorneys had repeatedly attempted to get the case thrown out since then.
This past August, Swift filed a motion saying that the “Shake It Off” lyrics “were written entirely by me.” She also claimed she “had never heard of that song” until the lawsuit was filed. Swift added she had grown up hearing variations of “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” while growing up. In September, Fitzgerald denied a last-ditch request from Swift to avoid trial.
Swift released Midnights, one of the best albums of 2022, in October. One of Spotify’s most-streamed artists of 2022, she is set to make her feature film directorial debut.
“The Eras Tour,” the superstar’s first stadium tour in five years, recently had a botched Ticketmaster pre-sale that has led to the formation of a congressional antitrust panel and a lawsuit filed by fans. In her own statement, Swift said the situation “really pisses me off.”