Judge Shakes Off Taylor Swift Case With Taylor Swift Lyrics

In what could be seen as putting a bit of salt in a wound, a judge in California threw out a copyright suit against Taylor Swift by using Swift’s own lyrics. Jessie Braham filed the suit, stating that Swift stole the lyrics for “Shake it Off” from one of Braham’s own songs.

The lyrics in question: Braham’s song goes, “Haters gone hate, playas gone play. Watch out for them fakers, they’ll fake you every day,” whereas Swift’s goes, “‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play. And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate… And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake.”

Eh… not too similar, now is it? District Court Judge Gail Standish agreed, and did so with, uh… style.

At present, the Court is not saying that Braham can never, ever, ever get his case back in court. But, for now, we have got problems, and the Court is not sure Braham can solve them. As currently drafted, the Complaint has a blank space — one that requires Braham to do more than write his name. And, upon consideration of the Court’s explanation … Braham may discover that mere pleading Band-Aids will not fix the bullet holes in his case. At least for the moment, Defendants have shaken off this lawsuit.

Apparently Braham just needs more factual evidence for the case. If he’s able to come up with it, he’s free to submit it again, though he’ll probably request for another judge, seeing as how there might be some bad blood here. I have to wonder though, if he ever could have expected this kind of response, even in his wildest dreams. Maybe with more evidence, he’ll be out of the woods. One thing’s for certain, though: for Braham, everything has changed. By now, he might understand all too well that TSwift is untouchable.

Better just shake it off.

(via Business Insider)

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Jessica Lachenal

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

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