Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift Asks Judge to Dismiss ‘Shake It Off' Copyright Lawsuit

Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who wrote the 2001 song “Playas Gon’ Play” by the group 3LW, sued the pop star in 2017, alleging she ripped off their lyrics

Taylor Swift
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Taylor Swift has asked a judge to dismiss a copyright infringement lawsuit over her single "Shake It Off," calling the judge's ruling for the case to proceed to jury trial "unprecedented."

Her hit, released in 2014, spent four weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Billboard reported. 

The pop singer was sued in 2017 by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who wrote the 2001 song “Playas Gon' Play” by the group 3LW, alleging she ripped off their lyrics. 

On Dec. 9, U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald denied Swift's motion for summary judgment and allowed the case to proceed, concluding there is a "genuine dispute as to the potential substantial similarity between the lyrics and their sequential structure."

The dispute was over Swift's lyrics, "Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate," as Hall and Butler's song featured the phrases, "playas, they gonna play" and "haters, they gonna hate."

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

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