Taylor Swift Facing Trial in “Shake It Off” Copyright Lawsuit

Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

The first single ” Shake It Off ” released from Taylor Swift’s fifth studio album, 1989 is now in a lawsuit for alleged copyright issues. The lawsuit was first filed back in 2017 claiming that Swift copied the lines “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” from a 3LW song.

The lawsuit was dismissed back in 2018 when the judge claimed the lyrics were too generic to be copyrighted. Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, writers of the 3LW song then appealed the ruling once again, and in 2019 the court reversed the lawsuit.

The judge from 2017, Michael Fitzgerald who had originally dismissed the case denied Taylor’s prompt to do so again. Fitzgerald is now claiming there’s still the plausible cause of un-originality.

The case is set to go to a jury trial but no date has been set currently.

I chose this article because, I am a Swiftie myself and I feel as this lawsuit does not have enough concrete evidence to be taken to trial. I think it is suspicious that the lawsuit was dismissed at first but now it is being taken to trail again.

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iHeart Pledges to Only Play “Taylors Version”

Photo by Taylor Swift on Twitter

With Taylor Swift in the process of slowly re-recording her old work, with the newest release of her album Red radio stations were still playing the old versions, now owned by Scooter Braun. iHeart, the world’s largest radio chain made a public pledge recently to only play “Taylors Version” of her songs.

Tom Poleman, chief programming officer for iHeart Media states that “whenever Taylor re-records a new track, we immediately replace the old versions.” He also states that the company is fully committed to delivering and playing what the fans want to hear. It has been abundantly clear that fans want to hear the newly re-recorded versions.

Variety Magazine made a comment that most radio stations never switched out the “gold tracks” from the old version to the new track. Although Taylor never came forth with the wishes of playing strictly “Taylors Version”, Swifties have made it clear that they want to hear the re-recorded version.

As of now iHearts the executive decision only applies to the re-recorded version of Fearless, which was released this past June and obviously Red. As Taylor keeps releasing her own versions of her old albums, iHeart will only play those versions.