Taylor Swift has spoken out against an early-2000s girl band that has accused the American singer of ripping off one of their songs.
The pop and R&B group 3LW recorded a small number of songs during their time as a band in 1999 and 2000, including a song entitled 'Playas Gon' Play'.
The songwriters, Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, have launched a lawsuit against Swift, claiming her lyrics in 'Shake It Off' are similar to theirs.
Anyone who has heard Swift's 'Shake It Off' will know she mentions those three words in the chorus.
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Now Taylor Swift herself has spoken out, revealing that she has never even heard of the band or the song she has been accused of copying.
The megastar also filed a sworn declaration to the court in an attempt to finish a years-long lawsuit over the copying claim.
In the signed court filing, Swift stated that the lyrics to her chart-topping hit were 'written entirely by me'.
"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,” the star wrote in her declaration to the court, as per Billboard.
"None of the CDs I listened to as a child, or after that, were by 3LW. I have never heard the song 'Playas Gon’ Play' on the radio, on television, or in any film."
She added: "The first time I ever heard the song was after this claim was made."
Swift would have been aged 10 when 3LW's song came out and quickly vanished from the charts.
She explained that her parents 'did not permit' her to watch TRL until se was about 13 years old, meaning she had little to no chance of exposure to the fleeting girl band.
Attorneys for the 'Shake It Off' singer also suggested that Hall and Butler are attempting to profit off of Swift's success.
"It is, unfortunately, not unusual for a hit song to be met by litigants hoping for a windfall based on tenuous claims that their own song was copied,” Swift’s lawyer Peter Anderson wrote in the motion, as per Billboard.
He added: "[The] plaintiffs’ claim sticks out as particularly baseless."
In her signed statement, Swift stated that she had no need to replicate 3LW's lyrics as they are so common that she had heard them 'countless times' during her life.
"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.
"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.'"
Swift’s legal team has previously made a similar argument to the court.
The case is set to appear before a jury, however a court date is yet to be set.
Topics: Taylor Swift, Music, News
Rachel Lang