Taylor Swift wins Florida writer's copyright case

Taylor Swift wins Florida writer’s copyright case – A federal court judge on Monday rejected a lawsuit accusing newlywed music megastar Taylor Swift of copying terms from a Florida woman’s writings for more than a dozen songs.
According to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the plaintiff, Kimberly Marasco, failed to demonstrate that her poetry constituted protectable expression, or that Swift had read the poems and an average person would consider her songs substantially comparable.

Marasco represented herself. When reached via email, she stated that she disagreed with the judgment and intends to appeal.
Lawyers for Swift and the other defendants, which include Republic Records and Universal Music Group, (UMG.AS), did not immediately reply to demands for comment.

Swift, 36, was accused of plagiarizing aspects from Marasco’s poetry volumes for songs like “Down Bad” and “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart,” which appear on Swift’s 2024 album “The Tortured Poets Department.”

However, the judge ruled that the similarities between Marasco’s poems and Swift’s songs were limited to “unprotectable ideas, themes, metaphors, and isolated words.”

Cannon provided other examples, including dealing with hardship, being “gaslighted” and being “submerged” under water.
Last September, the judge dismissed an earlier version of Marasco’s claim.

Marasco argued that when Marasco made new claims, “the works are not even very comparable — a point petitioner effectively acknowledges by characterizing the alleged copying as “paraphrase” “rephrasing,” and copying with ‘minor term alterations.'”