MUMBAI: Jesse Graham, the name may not ring a bell, but if a recent lawsuit that he has filed goes his way, he will not only be famous, but will also be $42 million richer. The concerned lawsuit was filed by the struggling R&B singer, who claims pop diva Taylor Swift’s 2014 smash hit ‘Shake It Off’ plagiarises his original single, released a year earlier.
Graham alleges that there is “no way” Swift can compose the song or the bits of it without “Haters gonna hate”. The singer, who filed the suit in federal court without a lawyer, had previously contacted Swift’s record label- Sony- asking for a mention as a songwriter for the track and a selfie with the 25-year-old singer. But, the record label rejected his demands and the argument has now headed to court.
The suit includes a YouTube link to the song ‘Haters Gone Gate’, which has garnered over 1 million views, with over 2000 ‘Dislikes’, 100 times more than the ‘Likes’ it received. Graham claims he copyrighted the phrase “Haters gonna hate”, although according to Micheal Einhorn, an expert who specalises in intellectual property cases, believes the case is going nowhere. Swift’s lawyers will have an easy task defending the suit because the singer is allowed to use lyrics that might appear in other songs under copyright’s “fair use” doctrine.
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