Taylor Swift Fights Back Against Accusations of Stealing ‘Shake It Off’

Taylor Swift is hoping to “shake off” this lawsuit.

The singer has been accused of copyright infringement in regards to her hit song “Shake It Off,” with songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler suing Swift in September due to perceived similarities between “Shake It Off” and their song “Playas Gon’ Play,” which they wrote for girl group 3LW in 2001.

In case you haven’t heard Swift’s “Shake It Off,” the chorus states: “Players gonna play, play, play, play, play, and haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate,” while the chorus of “Playas Gon’ Play” includes the line “Playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate.”

Variety reports that Swift’s lawyers asked a federal judge on Wednesday to dismiss the lawsuit, stating that the phrase “players gonna play and haters gonna hate” is a musical cliché and should be public domain.

“There can be no copyright protection in ‘playas, they gonna play and haters, they gonna hate,’ because it would impermissibly monopolize the idea that players will play and haters will hate,” the star’s lawyers argued. “Plaintiffs’ claim to being the only ones in the world who can refer to players playing and haters hating is frivolous… Providing a copyright monopoly in the phrase would prevent others from sharing the idea that players play and haters hate.”

The lawyers added that the court has a history of stating that short phrases cannot be copyrighted, and they added a selection of references to the words in popular songs including “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac (“Players only love you when they’re playing”) and “Playa Hater” by the Notorious B.I.G. (“We have, the playas, and we have, the playa haters”).

Photo Credit: YouTube / TaylorSwiftVEVO