Taylor Swift has won a court case this week that claimed one of her tracks from “Lover” infringed the work of a poet – only days after her wedding.
The lawsuit was put forward by poet Kimberly Marasco claiming that some of the lyrics from Taylor’s 2019 Track “The Man” cite phrases used in a poem of hers called “Ordinary Citizen.”
The specific lyrics that were brought to the court’s attention were: “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can / Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man.”
Marasco believed these lyrics bared a close resemblance to where her poem said: “I’m running behind / You say its His word against mine.”
Marasco further claimed that more than a dozen songs across “Lover”, “Folklore”, “Evermore”, “Midnights” and “The Tortured Poets Department” showed further links to her poetry.
According to entertainment outlet E!News, a ruling issued this week by US District Judge Aileen M. Cannon decided that the “the allegedly infringed material – basic ideas, themes, metaphors, isolated words, and short phrases — is not protected expression and cannot be infringed.”
The court also ruled that the two pieces weren’t substantially similar enough and that there was no proof that Taylor had access to Marasco’s work to be able to copy it.
The case has now been dismissed, but Maraco told Rolling Stone that she disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal the outcome.
The ‘Shake It Off’ Copyright Lawsuit
GettyThis isn’t the first time that Taylor has found herself in a lawsuit over her lyrics. In 2017 songwriters Sean Hall and Nate Butler claimed that the singer had copied the lyrics from their 2001 hit “Playas Gon’ Play” and used them in her song “Shake It Off”
“Shake It Off” is an enormous hit for Taylor, including a catchy chorus that says:
“‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off (whoo-hoo-hoo)’Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off (whoo-hoo-hoo)”
Sean and Nate believed this held strong similarities to the part of their track that goes:
“Them playas gon’ play
Them haters gonna hate
Them callers gonna call
Them ballers gonna ball”
Taylor insisted that she wrote the lyrics herself in sworn court declarations, and that she had also never previously heard the track “Playas Gon’ Play” prior to the lawsuit. Despite the lawsuit first being filed in 2017 it wasn’t well and truly resolved until 2022 when both sides mutually agreed to drop the case altogether in a private agreement.
Though in 2018 US District Judge Michael Fitzgerald originally dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds of believing that the repetition of the words and phrases in each song were too common to be considered as a form of infringement.
