Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ lawsuit case dropped

A copyright lawsuit filed against Taylor Swift for her 2014 hit “Shake It Off” has been dropped.

A Californian federal judge dismissed the case after the two sides agreed to resolve the suit in a settlement, according to court documents filed on Monday. Court proceedings had been scheduled to begin in January 2023.

The new papers for the lawsuit, which were originally filed in 2017 by songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.

Hall and Butler had previously alleged that Swift lifted lyrics for her song from their own Playas Gon’ Play, performed by US girl group 3LW.

Both songs feature the phrases "players gonna play" and "haters gonna hate".

In a sworn declaration, Swift, 32, said she had “never heard” of the song Playas Gon’ Play or 3LW.

She also insisted that the lyrics were written “entirely by me”.

District Judge Michael Fitzgerald had previously ruled in 2018 the lyrics were too "banal" to be copyrighted.

At the time he said: "In order for such short phrases to be protected under the Copyright Act, they must be more creative than the lyrics at issue here."

The judge noted songs by Notorious B.I.G, Fleetwood Mac and others that featured similar phrases.

But the songwriters appealed the decision in federal courts and their case was upheld, meaning it was sent back to the district judge.

Shake It Off was a huge hit for Swift and sat at number one in the charts for several weeks when it was released in 2014.