Taylor Swift is once again asking a California judge to drop a 2017 copyright infringement lawsuit accusing her of plucking lyrics from another artist. The suit centers on her 2014 hit “Shake It Off,” in which she sings, “Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play, and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” Songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler allege that Swift swiped the lyrics from the group 3LW’s 2001 song “Playas Gon’ Play.” The contested song includes the lines, “Playas, they gonna play” and “haters, they gonna hate.” On Dec. 9, the judge dismissed Swift’s prior attempts to toss the suit, claiming there is “genuine dispute as to the potential substantial similarity between the lyrics and their sequential structure.” Swift’s legal team maintains that the language is colloquial. In a new motion filed Dec. 23, they said, “Plaintiffs could sue everyone who writes, sings, or publicly says ‘players gonna play’ and ‘haters gonna hate.’ ... To permit that is unprecedented and ‘cheat[s] the public domain.”’
