Pop star Taylor Swift is appealing a federal judge’s decision to allow a copyright infringement lawsuit involving her hit song ‘Shake It Off’ to go to trial.

In a recent court filing, the singer claims that when the judge concluded on Dec. 9 that the two composers who allege she stole their lyrics and concept had presented a ‘genuine dispute’ that should be resolved by a jury, he failed to consider something called the ‘extrinsic test.’

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The main complaint claims that Sean Hall and Nathan Butler’s 2001 song ‘Playas Gon’ Play’ by the all-female R&B group 3LW is strikingly similar to Swift‘s 2014 pop anthem, particularly in the arrangement of the lyrics ‘playas gonna play’ and ‘haters gonna hate.’

The action, which was filed in 2017, was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald in 2018, but it was revived on appeal and returned to his court by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019.

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While Swift’s side made some ‘persuasive arguments,’ Judge Fitzgerald said in his ruling denying Swift’s request for summary judgement three weeks ago that ‘numerous factors’ still met the legal threshold for “potential substantial similarity between the lyrics and their sequential structure as framed by plaintiffs.”

Lawyers for Swift and her publishing partners argue that the ‘extrinsic test’ and established Circuit law ‘mandate’ that the court focus only on protectable elements while filtering out and disregarding phrases in the public domain in a new defence motion filed Dec. 23 asking Judge Fitzgerald to reconsider his ruling.

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“Both works use versions of two short public domain phrases — ‘players gonna play’ and ‘haters gonna hate’— that are free for everyone to use,” the new motion claims, noting that tautologies, which are used in both songs, are not protected.

“The presence of versions of the two short public domain statements and two other tautologies in both songs — a commonality that the court has noted — simply does not satisfy the extrinsic test. Otherwise, plaintiffs could sue everyone who writes, sings, or publicly says ‘players gonna play’ and ‘haters gonna hate’ alone with other tautologies. To permit that is unprecedented and cheats the public domain,” the new motion argues.

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The request for reconsideration will be heard on February 7 in Los Angeles.

“We feel there is no basis for reconsideration, and that this is just a music mogul and her machine trying to deny our client justice by outspending a fellow lower-income artist. Totally uncool among artists,” Gerard Fox, a lawyer for Hall and Butler, said in a statement to the Rolling Stone magazine on Monday.

A representative for Swift likened the lawsuit to a shakedown, in 2018 after the case was successfully appealed following its dismissal. “These men are not the originators, or creators, of the common phrases ‘Players’ or ‘Haters’ or combinations of them. They did not invent these common phrases nor are they the first to use them in a song,” the representative had told the Rolling Stone magazine. “Their claim is not a crusade for all creatives, it is a crusade for Mr. Hall’s bank account.”