“The presence of versions of the two short public domain statements and two other tautologies in both songs … simply does not satisfy the extrinsic test.” “Doing so here leaves only this similarity: both works use versions of two short public domain phrases – ‘players gonna play’ and ‘haters gonna hate’ – that are free for everyone to use, and two other but different tautologies that plaintiffs claim share the same underlying general idea or concept,” Swifts attorneys wrote. “It is essential to distinguish between the protected and unprotected material in a plaintiff’s work,” Swift’s attorneys wrote, quoting directly from the high-profile ruling that dismissed a similar case against Led Zeppelin over the intro to “Stairway to Heaven.” Namely, they argued he had failed to apply copyright law’s so-called extrinsic test – the process where judges filter out material that isn’t covered by copyrights before they compare the two songs. In the new filing seeking to overturn that ruling, Swift’s attorneys argued that Judge Fitzgerald had made a “clear error” in his analysis. “Even though there are some noticeable differences between the works, there are also significant similarities in word usage and sequence/structure,” Judge Fitzgerald wrote at the time. The judge said the case was too close to call, and would thus need to be decided by a jury of Swift’s peers. Fitzgerald refused Swift’s request to toss out the case. The song ultimately spent 50 weeks on the Hot 100, tied with Swift’s “You Belong With Me” for her longest-charting single. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 2014 and spent four weeks atop the chart. The case against Swift was filed in 2017 by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, the songwriters who wrote “Playas Gon’ Play.” In their 2001 song, the line was “playas, they gonna play” and “haters, they gonna hate” in Swift’s track, she sings, “‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” “To permit that is unprecedented and cheats the public domain.” “Plaintiffs could sue everyone who writes, sings, or publicly says ‘players gonna play’ and ‘haters gonna hate,'” wrote Swift’s attorney, Peter Anderson of the firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, in a Dec. ![]() In the filing, Swift’s attorneys argued that the ruling rose to that level, warning that “no other court” had ever allowed such a case to proceed to trial. Taylor Swift 'Shake It Off' Trial Makes 'Copyright Law Look Absurd,' Legal Experts Warn
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