Two songwriters have dropped their lawsuit claiming Grammy-winning musician Taylor Swift copied their lyrics in her 2014 number-one hit “Shake It Off,” based on courtroom paperwork filed on Monday.
Sean Hall and Nathan Butler instructed a Los Angeles federal decide they may dismiss their 2017 case with prejudice, which implies it can’t be refiled.
A trial within the case had been scheduled to start Jan. 17.
Monday’s courtroom papers didn’t say if there was a settlement. Representatives for the events didn’t instantly reply to requests for extra info.
In “Shake It Off,” Swift sings: “the players gonna play, play, play, play, play, and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”
“Playas Gon’ Play,” written by Hall and Butler, included the phrases “playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate.” The track, carried out by R&B group 3LW, was launched in 2001 and appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 and MTV’s Total Request Live.
A decide dismissed the case in 2018, however a U.S. appeals courtroom revived it in 2019.
Swift instructed the courtroom in August that she had by no means heard 3LW’s track earlier than writing “Shake It Off.” She mentioned she had heard the phrases “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” used generally to “express the idea that one can or should shrug off negativity.”
Hall and Butler mentioned that the lyrics had been too shut for his or her similarity to be a coincidence. They had requested for an unspecified sum of money damages.