Sue-TS, you sir!
Just to show that you can't keep a good copyright troll down, Sean Hall and Nathan Butler appealed against an earlier ruling that Taylor Swift had not plagiarised their work in the lyrics to Shake it Off, and that ruling has been overturned. The same judge who earlier dismissed the case, on the basis that the contentious phrases were too banal to be copyrightable, now states that there are significant similarities in word usage and sequence/structure
.
Huh! (rolleyes)
'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
Shake it Off, Taylor Swift
Playas, they gonna play And haters, they gonna hate Ballers, they gonna ball Shot callers, they gonna call That ain't got nothin' to do With me and you That's the way it is That's the way it is
Playas Gon' Play, Sean Hall and Nathan Butler
At least Swift can spell players
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The case will now go to trial. The only guaranteed winners will be the lawyers. (vulture) (vultures)
Judge Fitzgerald has dismissed the case. Again.
According to court documents, it was dismissed in its entirety
. So I guess that means this time it's for keepsies?
Things may not be all that they seem though:
US trade publication Variety reported the two parties had "reached an agreement" and jointly asked for the case to be dismissed. The terms of the settlement were not clear; however, the song's writing credits remain the same at the time of writing.
Steven McIntosh, Entertainment reporter, BBC News
Given that plaintiffs agreed to the dismissal, this wasn't entirely the judge's finding. So did he really dismiss the lawsuit, or was it pulled from underneath him? (thinking)