Judge Rules Taylor Swift Must Stand Trial In “Shake It Off” Lawsuit

Back in August, Taylor Swift filed motion in the alleged copyright infringement lawsuit against her 2014 single “Shake It Off” claiming that the lyrics were entirely written by her. Now, according to Pitchfork, Swift will be standing trial for the case in January 2023. 

To offer a brief history of the case, it began in 2017 when the lawsuit was first filed which claimed that Swift allegedly plagiarized the lyrics from 3LW’s 2000 song “Playas Gon’ Play.” It was then dismissed in 2018 by US District Judge Michael Fitzgerald to which he remarked that the lyricism was “too brief, unoriginal and uncreative to warrant protection under the Copyright Act.” The decision was reversed in 2019. Swift has since been attempting to avoid standing trial but it seems that her last attempt to do so has failed.

“I still think there’s a genuine issue of material fact in part because of the expert opinion,” Judge Fitzgerald explained in his decision to deny Swift’s motion. 

In other news, Swift recently announced her forthcoming album Midnights for release in October. The new record is her first in two years since the release of folklore and evermore which arrived in July and December 2020 respectively. Midnights marks the singer’s tenth studio album since her debut self-titled offering which was released back in 2006. Swift has since been re-releasing newly recorded versions of her previous albums including Red (2012) which has been considered for Grammy nomination and Fearless (2009) in order to try to regain control of her music.

Back in June, Swift released a new song “Carolina” from the Where The Crawdads Sing soundtrack. In May, she shared new rendition of “This Love (Taylor’s Version).” Last year, her 10-minute version of “All Too Well” became a viral Internet hit and even became the longest number one hit since Don McLean’s 1971 classic “American Pie.”