Taylor Swift has issued a response to a copyright lawsuit from 2017, which songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, the writers behind 3LW’s ‘Playas Gon’ Play,’ accused Taylor of ‘plagiarizing their lyrics for her 2014 single, Shake It Off.’

 

 

 

 

 

Shown in court documents, Taylor has ‘denied these allegations’ and insists the lyrics to ‘Shake It Off’ were written entirely by her.  In a declaration that was filed on August 8, Taylor states, “I co-wrote ‘Shake It Off’ with Karl Martin Sandberg, known professionally as Max Martin, and Karl Johan Schuster, professionally known as Shellback, at Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles, on February 2014.”

 

“We began writing the song after I discussed with Max Martin and Shellback that I wanted to write a song that would help me cope with the stresses in my life, and would also double as a song that would make people get up and dance.  In writing the lyrics, I drew partly one experiences in my life and, in particular, unrelenting public scrutiny of my personal life, ‘clickbait’ reporting, public manipulation, and other forms of negative personal criticism which I learned I just needed to shake off and focus on music,” Taylor explains.

 

 

 

 

“I recall hearing phrases about players play and haters hate stated together by other children while attending school in Wyomissing Hills, and in high school in Hendersonviille.  These phrases were akin to other commonly used sayings like ‘don’t hate the playa, hate the game,’ ‘take a chill pill,’ and ‘say it, don’t spray it,'” she continues.

 

Taylor’s lawyer, Pete Anderson, wrote in today’s motion, “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’ claims sticks out as particularly baseless.”

 

 

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Taylor also added that ‘she had never heard of the song or 3LW until 2017 when the lawsuit was filed,’ “My parents did not permit me to watch TRL until I was about 13 years old.  None of the CDs I listened to as a child, or after that, were by 3LW.  I have never heard the song ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ on the radio, on television, or in any film.  The first time I heard the song was after this claim was made.”

Filed under: 3lw, taylor-swift