Taylor Swift Sued For Swiping Song Lyrics

Similarity always equals a lawsuit in America. If there’s an open opportunity to grab money from the table a starving artist or songwriter will take a stab at it. Even if it was an R & B song from 16 years ago. Taylor Swift opened herself up to a lawsuit when she allegedly plagiarized the chorus and more belonging to the 3LW song “Playas Gon’ Play” written by songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler. They’re not the biggest fans of repackaging soulful R & B songs of so long ago. And this looks like karma coming back around to bite Taylor. She’s been trademarking phrases for merch to make herself that much richer. Now the legal battle of who can be more petty, singer or songwriter, has begun. 

Taylor Swift‘s massive hit “Shake it Off” was not really hers … so claim 2 accomplished songwriters who wrote a hit song with similar lyrics 16 years ago … at least that’s what they’re saying in a new lawsuit. Sean Hall and Nathan Butler say they wrote a song entitled “Playas Gon’ Play” back in 2001, and it Hit #81 on Billboard Hot 100.  It was recorded by a big girl group, 3LW. Among the lyrics … “Playas, they gonna play and haters, they gonna hate.” Not hard to figure out the rest. Hall and Butler say 20% of “Shake it Off” is their song.

I’m thankful every day the entirety of the English language hasn’t been trademarked. People are getting greedier. Taylor’s reps are saying the lawsuit is stupid, but so is attempting to trademark common song titles. Imagine if song titles using variations of “Love” and “Let It Go” were all trademarked. Most music would come to a halt as we know it. We would all be forced to listen to Peruvian flute band albums. I don’t want to live in a world where when I Shazam a song the title has a variant of a common title with numbers added after like an already taken email address suggestion. And most average pop songs aren’t the same caliber as classical hits to come with serenade and symphony numbers. 

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