Nathan Butler: Last News

One of the big ongoing song theft legal battles has been settled. A deal has been reached between Taylor Swift and songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler over the lyrical references to playas playing and haters hating in her 2014 hit ‘Shake It Off’.Hall and Butler accused Swift of ripping off their 2001 song ‘Playas Gon Play’ when she wrote ‘Shake It Off’.

UPDATE: Taylor Swift has shaken off a copyright lawsuit that alleged she had plagiarized the lead song to her 1989 album. The two songwriters, Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, dropped the suit and said they would dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning that they will not be able to refile, according to Reuters.

As the song theft legal battle in relation to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ rumbles on, at a court hearing yesterday attention turned to the argument that the songwriters suing Swift don’t even have the legal right to pursue the litigation.In this particular song-theft case, songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler accuse Swift of ripping off their 2001 song ‘Playas Gon Play’ when she wrote her 2014 hit. The claim is mainly based on the similarities between the two songs’ respective key lines, with the 2001 track having the line “the playas gon play/them haters gonna hate”, while ‘Shake It Off’ famously includes the lyric “the players gonna play, play, play, play, play/and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate”.Swift’s legal team have been trying very hard to get the case dismissed, mainly on the basis that the notion of players playing and haters hating is far too generic for lyrics based on said notion to be protected by copyright in isolation.

copyright infringement lawsuit centered on ‘Shake It Off’ to be dismissed is denied, and that the trial will go ahead.US District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald issued his decision nearly nine months after Swift’s motion to have the case dropped was put forward.In last December’s defence motion, Swift’s lawyers argued that Fitzgerald had failed to consider the “extrinsic test” – the standard whereby it’s determined if copyright is breached when two works of similar nature are presented – within songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler’s claim that Swift copied lines from the pair’s 2001 song ‘Playas Gon’ Play’.Swift’s legal team believes that such a consideration would make it clear that Swift’s lyrics are based on phrases in the public domain and not, in fact, copied from Hall and Butler.“There’s a genuine issue of material fact,” Fitzgerald said upon issuing the ruling yesterday (September 12) in a hearing at a Los Angeles court [via Rolling Stone].“The motion for reconsideration is denied,” he continued.

As the song theft legal battle over Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ continues to go through the motions, her legal team are keen to block two of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses and limit the testimony of a third. The experts, you see, lack expertise.

Taylor Swift is being sued for more than a million dollars over a booklet she released as a companion to her 2019 album, Lover, by a woman who claims the star copied her own version.Teresa La Dart, an author, filed a lawsuit against the 32-year-old Grammy winner for copyright infringement, according to documents obtained by TMZ on Wednesday.The outlet reported that La Dart, who published a book in 2010 of 'poems, anecdotes and photos' also titled Lover, feels Swift copied 'the vibe and design' for her own work nine years later. Legal woes: Taylor Swift is being sued for more than a million dollars over a booklet she released as a companion to her 2019 album, Lover, by a woman who claims the star copied her own version (Seen in 2021)In the documents, La Dart suggests that Taylor and her team read her Lover book and decided to replicate the concept and slap Swift's name on it.The author says both works not only share the same title but are each a 'recollection of past years memorialized in a combination of written and pictorial components.'  In addition, La Dart thinks the color scheme and style of the images used are too similar to be coincidental. La Dart wants more than a million dollars in damages.

Taylor Swift is being sued for more than a million dollars over a booklet she released as a companion to her 2019 album, Lover, by a woman who claims the star copied her own version.Teresa La Dart, an author, filed a lawsuit against the 32-year-old Grammy winner for copyright infringement, according to documents obtained by TMZ on Wednesday.The outlet reported that La Dart, who published a book in 2010 of 'poems, anecdotes and photos' also titled Lover, feels Swift copied 'the vibe and design' for her own work nine years later. Legal woes: Taylor Swift is being sued for more than a million dollars over a booklet she released as a companion to her 2019 album, Lover, by a woman who claims the star copied her own version (Seen in 2021)In the documents, La Dart suggests that Taylor and her team read her Lover book and decided to replicate the concept and slap Swift's name on it.The author says both works not only share the same title but are each a 'recollection of past years memorialized in a combination of written and pictorial components.'  In addition, La Dart thinks the color scheme and style of the images used are too similar to be coincidental. La Dart wants more than a million dollars in damages.

: “I don’t know her.” is currently being sued by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who wrote the song “Playas Gon’ Play” for former girl group 3LW, and as you may have guessed by the title, their chorus is lyrically very close to the chorus from Swift’s “Shake It Off." (If this sounds familiar, it’s because they also sued her in 2018, but the judge dismissed it—the lawsuit was reopened last year, .)But there’s no way could have copied the 3LW single because, as she said in her latest motion, she’d never heard it or even heard of it when she released “Shake It Off” back in 2014. As she explains in the motion, filed on August 6, she grew up listening almost exclusively to country music, rarely listened to the radio, and never watched TRL or MTV.

Taylor Swift is declaring that she did not infringe upon another song’s copyright, following the 2017 lawsuit by songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, insisting that the singer was copying their 2001 song Playas Gon‘ Play for her hit song ‘Shake It Off.’The 32-year-old musician, who was recently celebrating Selena Gomez’s 30th birthday, submitted a sworn declaration in which she states that she wrote her popular song “entirely” and had not heard the 2001 track before, in light of the accusations.“The lyrics to Shake It Off were written entirely by me,” Taylor said in her declaration. “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.”Taylor also explained that it would have been impossible for her to know about the song, as her parents did not allow her to watch “(MTV’s countdown show) TRL until I was about 13 years old.”Her legal team detailed that some of the accusations can be easily seen as coincidence, as the similar phrases in both tracks, “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” were commonly used and Taylor might have heard them on the school playground without ever having to listen to the song.Taylor even said that she brought a “haters gonna hate” T-shirt from Urban Outfitters in 2013,” and 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’...

Taylor Swift yesterday submitted a statement to a US court as part of the long-running song-theft legal battle over her 2014 hit ‘Shake It Off’, which songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler reckon rips off their 2001 song ‘Playas Gon Play’. Swift’s statement explains how she came up with the lyrics for her track, while also insisting there was no way she could have been exposed to ‘Playas Gon Play’ before creating ‘Shake It Off’.Hall and Butler first sued Swift in 2017.

Taylor Swift is personally responding to a plagiarism lawsuit.

Taylor Swift has addressed a 2017 copyright lawsuit that claimed she stole the lyrics of her 2014 song ‘Shake It Off’.Writing in a federal court document filed yesterday (August 8), the popstar denied any copyright infringement, and claimed she’d “never heard” the song she is accused of plagiarising – 2001’s ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ by the American pop trio 3LW.In excerpts of the motion obtained by Billboard, Swift unequivocally rejected the accusation, writing that “the lyrics to ‘Shake It Off’ were written entirely by me”, before providing context around how they came to be included in the song.“In writing the lyrics, I drew partly on 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 my music,” Swift wrote.Elsewhere in the motion, Swift spoke directly to the lyric in question, arguing that “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate” were widespread aphorisms used throughout her childhood, “akin to … sayings like ‘don’t hate the playa, hate the game,’” and “‘take a chill pill’”.“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 Hendersonville,” Swift said.Swift also cited the numerous uses of the phrase ​​in “many songs, films, and other works,” and referenced a 2013 performance in which she wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the term “haters gonna hate.”The lawsuit — filed by ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler — was dropped in 2018, but was later resurrected by an appeals panel the following year.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticTaylor Swift clearly believes she’s being played in court, as a declaration she filed to the judge in a “Shake It Off” plagiarism lawsuit laid out her contention that she never heard the song she’s accused of lifting, “Playas Gon’ Play,” until after she was made aware of the legal action.“The lyrics to ‘Shake It Off’ were written entirely by me,” Swift said in paperwork filed in response to the allegation from two songwriters that her 2014 smash infringed upon a single from the group 3LW that peaked at No. 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2001.“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,” Swift wrote in a filing first reported on by Billboard.

Taylor Swift wants to make something very clear: her 2014 hit “Shake It Off” was “written entirely” by her and no one else.

The back and forth continues in the ‘Shake It Off’ song-theft legal battle, with the songwriters who accuse Taylor Swift of ripping off their work insisting their litigation should now head to a jury trial.Legal reps for Sean Hall and Nathan Butler filed new papers with the court on Friday urging the judge to knock back Swift’s most recent and seemingly final attempt to get the case kicked out of court via summary judgement.Hall and Butler accuse Swift of ripping off their 2001 song ‘Playas Gon Play’ on her 2014 hit. The former had the lyric “the playas gon play/them haters gonna hate”, while ‘Shake It Off’ famously includes the line “the players gonna play, play, play, play, play/and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate”.The duo first went legal in 2017, but the following year judge Michael Fitzgerald dismissed their lawsuit on the basis that the handful of lyrics the two songs have in common are not protected by copyright in isolation.However, Hall and Butler successfully over-turned that ruling in the Ninth Circuit appeals court, where judges said that Fitzgerald had been too hasty to conclude that the lines about players playing and haters hating were not protected by copyright.As a result, the whole matter was sent back to the lower court.

Taylor Swift is looking to shake up the legal world by asking a judge to reconsider moving to a jury trial over her Shake It Off hit song.The lawsuit was filed by songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who wrote the 2001 song Playas Gon' Play by 3LW.They contend that Swift pilfered the lyrics from their song, and while a federal judge denied Swift's earlier motion to dismiss, Swift and her lawyers are asking the judge to reconsider, in what is said to be a rare move only used when judges have made a clear error in their ruling, via Billboard.

Taylor Swift will be forced to defend herself against copyright claims in front of a jury after a federal judge ruled the lawsuit will go to trial.Swift, 31, is being sued by songwritersSean Hall and Nathan Butler, who claim that her 2014 hit Shake It Off lifted lines from their 2001 song Playas Gon' Play, which was performed by the girl group 3LW.The case was previously dismissed by the judge, but the successful appeal means the songwriters will get to make their case in court. On trial: A federal judge ruled Friday that Taylor Swift will have to go to a jury trial over claims that she reused lines from 3LW's Playas Gon' Play in her 2014 hit Shake It Off; seen in 2019 in NYCU.S.

Taylor Swift will be forced to defend herself against copyright claims in front of a jury after a federal judge ruled the lawsuit will go to trial.Swift, 31, is being sued by songwritersSean Hall and Nathan Butler, who claim that her 2014 hit Shake It Off lifted lines from their 2001 song Playas Gon' Play, which was performed by the girl group 3LW.The case was previously dismissed by the judge, but the successful appeal means the songwriters will get to make their case in court. On trial: A federal judge ruled Friday that Taylor Swift will have to go to a jury trial over claims that she reused lines from 3LW's Playas Gon' Play in her 2014 hit Shake It Off; seen in 2019 in NYCU.S.

Taylor Swift will be forced to defend herself against copyright claims in front of a jury after a federal judge ruled the lawsuit will go to trial.Swift, 31, is being sued by songwritersSean Hall and Nathan Butler, who claim that her 2014 hit Shake It Off lifted lines from their 2001 song Playas Gon' Play, which was performed by the girl group 3LW.The case was previously dismissed by the judge, but the successful appeal means the songwriters will get to make their case in court. On trial: A federal judge ruled Friday that Taylor Swift will have to go to a jury trial over claims that she reused lines from 3LW's Playas Gon' Play in her 2014 hit Shake It Off; seen in 2019 in NYCU.S.