After Taylor Swift’s lawyers urged a judge to reconsider his decision to let the lawsuit against the singer for “Shake It Off” go forward, the plaintiffs are fighting back. “Plaintiffs could sue everyone who writes, sings, or publicly says ‘players gonna play’ and ‘haters gonna hate.’ To permit that is unprecedented and cheats the public domain,” wrote Swift’s lawyer, Peter Anderson, in his filing.
But the accusers lawyers have some of their own. In a new report from Billboard, the attorneys for songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who wrote the song “Playas” claimed there was “no conceivable procedural vehicle” for the lawyer’s request.
“The rules simply do not provide defendants with vehicles for rehashing old arguments and are not intended to give an unhappy litigant one additional chance to sway the judge,” wrote Marina Bogorad, who represents Hall and Butler. “Summary judgment decisions are not made in the court of public opinion, and this court should not be swayed by its fickle nature. Defendants cite no basis for their truly unprecedented attempt to infuse public debate into the court’s analysis.”
Their song was written for the girl group 3LW, who released the song “Playas Gon’ Play” back in 2001. Hall and Butler and began attempting to sue swift in 2017 for similarities between their song and “Shake It Off,” and though their suit was initially dismissed, it’s now been reopened. Choice lyrics involved in the suit: ” “playas, they gonna play” and “haters, they gonna hate” in t3LW’s song, and “‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate” in Swift’s version.
“Out of the myriad of choices available to put together a chorus expressing the basic idea that people will do what they do while the protagonist should stay true to herself, defendants decided to appropriate all the plaintiffs’ choices,” Bogorad claimed. The complete legal filings are available below.
