A judge is saying “playa pleathe” to music superstar Taylor Swift over claims her 2014 smash single ‘Shake It Off’ didn’t borrow elements of 3LW‘s moderate 2001 hit, ‘Playas Gon’ Play.’
Swift may have thought she shook the judgment after the original copyright infringement claim was dismissed in 2018, but an appeals court said the decision was ‘too close to call’ in December 2021 and is deferring to a jury.
In light of a new motion submitted by the GRAMMY winner’s legal team Monday (August 8), look inside to read her lengthy statement on the matter.
In a lengthy message included in the motion to dismiss the case, Swift says the lyrics to ‘Shake’ were completely written by her.
“In writing the lyrics, I drew partly on experiences in my life and, in particular, unrelenting public scrutiny of my personal life, “clickbait” reporting, public manipulation, and other forms of negative personal criticism which I learned I just needed to shake off and focus on my music.
I recall hearing phrases about players play and haters hate stated together by other children while attending school in Wyomissing Hills, and in high school in Hendersonville. These phrases were akin to other commonly used sayings like “don’t hate the playa, hate the game,” “take a chill pill,” and “say it, don’t spray it.”
Later in the post, Taylor suggests it’s impossible she could have stolen from 3LW or the song ‘Play’ as she’d never heard of either before the lawsuit. In fact, she asserts her mother didn’t allow her to watch ‘TRL’ until she was 13-years-old.
“None of the CDs I listened to as a child, or after that, were by 3LW,” she continued. “I have never heard the song ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ on the radio, on television, or in any film. The first time I ever heard the song was after this claim was made.”
Her lawyer, Peter Anderson, filed the motion to dismiss the case and chimed in.
“It is, unfortunately, not unusual for a hit song to be met by litigants hoping for a windfall based on tenuous claims that their own song was copied,” Peter Anderson wrote. “But even against that background, Plaintiffs’ claim sticks out as particularly baseless.”
As of time reported, an official date has not been released for the trial.