Recently, a lawsuit was filed against Taylor Swift on copyright grounds, but there weren’t many reports on the situation. From the basic description of the situation, Jessie Braham claimed that Swift had stolen lyrics from him, namely from his song “Haters Gonna Hate”, which she then used in her popular song “Shake It Off”. Braham claimed that he had copyright on the song since February, and he wanted a serious sum in damages from Taylor Swift.
More specifically, Braham was asking for $42 million, and he even wanted to get special credit on Swift’s song, as he apparently believed that he deserved all that due to his “contribution” to the work of Taylor Swift. There were initially some rumors about the case in the celebrity world, but it was hard to get any official information on it as it was mostly being kept under wraps.
Now, it’s been reported that the case has been dismissed, and there was even a humorous twist to its conclusion, as the judge presiding over the case decided to use Taylor Swift’s own lyrics in delivering the final verdict. This generated a lot of attention towards the case within the community, and many people found it a humorous conclusion to a case that should have never gotten off the ground in the first place.
There have been some minor rumors that the case might find its way back to the courthouse, but the way the law works would make that a very difficult thing. Indeed, fans of Taylor Swift are convinced that their favorite singer has successfully defeated Jessie Braham and she isn’t going to be hearing much from him in the future. On the other hand, the case has also generated some negative attention towards Braham himself, as many people were apparently displeased with the frivolous nature of his lawsuit.
The case is probably more complicated than that however, as copyright law usually is. There are various special clauses that require an artist to protect their work or otherwise face the risk of having their copyright stripped away from them, and some have argued that Braham may not even have wanted to file that lawsuit in the first place, although the high value of the compensation that he requested certainly speaks otherwise and makes this claim questionable.
As can be expected, the verdict also managed to get many people talking, and the complex nature of copyright law certainly doesn’t stop some from actively discussing it online whenever something more major like this comes up. It seems to be a hot topic in some particular online communities, and fans of art of all types love to talk about the implications of the law on their favorite artists and who deserves what in certain cases. Of course, the fact that this law requires so much work from high-class lawyers with a lot of experience probably indicates that people on the Internet don’t have a place to discuss it with such confidence.
Taylor Swift herself has been mostly quiet on the situation, although even if she did have something to add to the public discussions about it, she probably doesn’t have much of a legal right to do so. After all, she just got awarded victory in a legal case and it would not be a very smart idea for her to talk about it at all, especially if she has some more critical remarks to make with regards to Jessie Braham.