The lawsuit was filed by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, the writers of the 2001 song “Playas Gon’ Play” by the R&B group 3LW. A trial would test whether parts of Ms. Swift’s song, including versions of the phrases “players gonna play” and “haters gonna hate,” are similar enough to the earlier song to meet the legal threshold for copyright infringement.
But in 2020, some felt the tide was changing after Led Zeppelin prevailed in a copyright suit in October of that year.