Taylor Swift Says She Hadn't Heard of Girl Group 3LW When Writing 'Shake It Off' in Lawsuit Response
By Jack Irvin - People Magazine
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Taylor Swift is defending herself against claims that she plagiarized the lyrics to her 2014 hit "Shake It Off" from girl group 3LW's 2000 single "Playas Gon' Play."
The early aughts R&B track's writers, Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, filed a lawsuit against Swift, 32, in 2017 and alleged that her lyrics, "'Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play / And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate," were stolen from 3LW's "Playas Gon' Play," which features the lyrics, "The playas gon' play / Them haters gonna hate" and "Playas, they gonna play / And haters, they gonna hate."
After a judge decided the lyrics were "too banal" to be plagiarized, the lawsuit was dismissed in 2018 — but an appeal panel relaunched the case the following year. Swift then attempted to have the case dismissed, though a judge claimed on Dec. 9 that both tracks had "enough objective similarities" for the case to continue.
In a new declaration filed on Monday, according to documents obtained by PEOPLE, Swift wrote that "the lyrics to Shake It Off were written entirely by me" and added that the song is "about independence and 'shaking off' negative personal criticism through music and dance."
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She added that the track's lyrics drew from personal experiences with "public scrutiny" and "negative personal criticism" and featured several "commonly used phrases and comments heard throughout my life."
"Prior to writing 'Shake It Off,' I had heard the phrases 'players gonna play' and 'haters gonna hate' uttered countless times to express the idea that one can or should shrug off negativity," stated Swift, who also recalled wearing a "haters gonna hate" t-shirt from Urban Outfitters in 2013 — one year before writing "Shake It Off" — and hearing similar phrases in Eric Church's 2013 single "The Outsiders."
The "All Too Well" musician also said she was unaware of 3LW — which featured members Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams, who'd both later perform in The Cheetah Girls, as well as Naturi Naughton, now known as an actress on Power — and the 2000 single at the time of writing "Shake It Off."
"Until learning about Plaintiffs' claim in 2017, I had never heard the song 'Playas Gon' Play' and had never heard of that song or the group 3LW," said Swift, claiming she'd never encountered the song "on the radio, on television, or in any film."
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Elsewhere in the declaration, Swift said that growing up, her family mostly listened to CDs rather than the radio, and when they did play the radio, it was "generally country music."
"I did not watch the MTV show TRL, and I did not go to clubs during this time. The only concerts I went to were for country and folk rock singers, LeAnn Rimes, Billy Gilman and Melissa Etheridge," she detailed. "My parents limited what I could watch and listen to, and did not permit me to watch TRL until I was about 13 years old."
"Playas Gon' Play" was released on 3LW's self-titled debut album on Dec. 5, 2000, when Swift was 10 years old. The song — which peaked at No. 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 — was promoted as a single, largely on radio and TRL, starting in April 2001, and Swift was 11 years old at the time.
According to The Guardian, Swift's mother, Andrea, echoed her daughter's claims in a statement filed at the same time, which states that she "carefully monitored both the television [Swift] watched and the music she heard" in addition to her internet activity.
"Taylor did not attend sleepovers at friends' houses as a young girl because we lived on a farm until she was 10 years old and I always preferred having friends come over to our home," continued Andrea, 64.
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Peter Anderson, Swift's lawyer, also filed a statement, reports The Guardian: "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. But even against that background, Plaintiffs' claim sticks out as particularly baseless."
Additionally, Hall and Butler addressed Swift's claims in a statement. "This is defendants' fourth attempt to make these claims go away, so defendants' labeling them as baseless rings hollow at this point," they wrote.
"The law does not believe in pure coincidences, especially where, as here, the two works are so strikingly similar that Ms Taylor's denial of access makes no difference to the outcome," continued Hall and Butler. "Plaintiffs are confident that there are abundant factual issues for their claims to reach the jury, as it is not up to the court to weigh in on credibility issues or crown the winner in the battle of the experts."
