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Taylor Swift. Photo courtesy of The Variety.
Summary: The $42 million copyright infringement lawsuit against Taylor Swift has been thrown out in an interesting way.
Taylor Swift may be adding a new member to her squad—Judge Gail Standish.
Earlier this month, musician Jesse Braham crawled out of obscurity to file a $42 million copyright infringement suit against the pop singer. He alleged that her megahit “Shake It Off” stole from his song “Haters Gonna Hate.” He sought damages and a writing credit.
But the judge in the case decided to put some teardrops on his guitar. Judge Standish showed her Swift fandom by dismissing Braham’s suit and peppering her ruling with lyrics from Swift’s songs.
“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 in Part II, Braham may discover that mere pleading BandAids will not fix the bullet holes in his case. At least for the moment, Defendants have shaken off this lawsuit,” Standish wrote. (Lyrics are highlighted by JD Journal.)
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Braham acted as his own attorney. His lawsuit was at parts handwritten and contained grammatical errors and spelling issues. According to USA Today, it “clearly was not produced by a professional.” (To see the actual lawsuit, click here.)
Braham’s stage name is Jesse Graham. He’s a R&B singer who wrote a song copyrighted in February 2013 called “Haters Gonna Hate.” He believed that Swift’s lyrics “Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play / And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate” copied his lyrics “Haters gonna hate / players gonna play.”
So take note. If you ever use any form of “players play” or “haters hate” then Braham might come for you. Although we would argue that 3LW could come for Braham because of their 2000 hit song “Playas Gon’ Play,” which features the lyrics “Playas, they gonna play / And haters, they gonna hate / Ballers, they gonna ball / Shot callers, they gonna call…”
Standish had more fun with this case, which she dismissed without prejudice.
“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,” Standish wrote.
Braham was annoyed that the judge seemed to make a joke of his case. After all, why she gotta be so mean? TMZ reports that the plaintiff is seeking another judge that isn’t a Swift fan.
Looks like Tay Tay isn’t out of the woods just yet.
Source: http://www.tmz.com/2015/11/13/taylor-swift-lawsuit-new-judge/
