Taylor Swift court case

[HoardingSamphireSaurus]

So...

Players gonns play
Haters gonna hate

is a copyright offence?

Well, erm, maybe Stevie Nicks could have a word with Sean Hall and Nathan Butler. I doubt they were born when she was singing about players in 1977.

But Notorious BIG was before them too, and Ice T

Makes you wonder what other mad cases make it to court

She registered them a decade back. Hence they're governed by law.

It's no different to any slogan which is registered.

Its totally uncontroversial.

(Working from memory happy to be corrected by reference to facts. OP isn't v clear).

Sorry for the lack of clarity, I wa listening to the news and giggling

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/taylor-swift-shake-it-off-copyright-lawsuit-b1973380.html

Writers for a definct band have claimed Swift has illegally used their lyrics, that her chorus ripped off another song, that they are, somehow, the originators of the phrases around players and haters.

As I said, maybe Stevie Nicks could have a word!

I also think it also owes a lot to Primal Screams 'rocks'
'Hustlers keep on hustling' etc.

Did Swift have a song saying ‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate’

Then they might have a point.

But players gonna play and haters gonna hate? That’s nonsense!

And many others. Because those are common phrases, social media, zeitgeisty things.

People who do a thing are always going to do a thing; drink, shout, sing, dance

I suppose it shouldn't have made me giggle. Even John Fogerty couldn't escape being sued for sounding too much like, erm, John Fogerty

Then they might have a point. What point though? If this is right then no two songs could ever have similar lyrics. One song per pertinent word wouldn't work.

That and they weren't the progenitors of either phrase!

Oh so sorry OP!!! I thought someone was suing TS.

And vaguely remember her copyrighting certain lyrics for merch

I think anyone suing her for a song lyric without separate tm registration is gonna struggle

But I guess..

Players gonna play...

... and haters gonna hate...

I read this on the BBC this morning and thought it was bananas.

American copyright law has gone a but weird. There was an author a while back who wrote a book with the word ‘cocky’ in the series title, trademarked it and then took a bunch of other authors to court for having cocky in their books series titles even though their books were ohblished way before hers. She lost eventually but shows how mad their trademark law is.

www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/authors-guild-rwa-prevail-court-defending-authors-cocky-trademark-dispute/

And after Taylor Swift gave a writer credit to Right Said Fred on her album because one bit sounds almost a tiny bit like one of his songs.