A copyright infringement lawsuit against Taylor Swift was dropped by a California judge on Monday.

The 2017 suit alleged that Swift violated copyright agreements with her 2014 chart-topping hit "Shake it Off," and marks the second time the suit was thrown out by a judge. The original suit was struck down in 2018 by a judge who claimed the lyrics were "Short phrases that lack the modicum of originality and creativity required for copyright protection." It was sent back to district court by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2019.

The lyrics from Swift's song which led to the dispute were "Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play/ And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate hate." Songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler claimed the lyrics were an infringement on the 3LW song "Playas Gon' Play" from 2000, which features the lines "The playas gon' play/Them haters gonna hate."

In the court filing, Swift said that she "had never heard the song 'Playas Gon' Play' and had never heard of that song or the group 3LW."

She also claimed that she wrote the entirety of the lyrics herself.

"In writing the lyrics, I drew partly on experiences in my life and, in particular, unrelenting public scrutiny of my personal life, 'clickbait' reporting, public manipulation and other forms of negative personal criticism," she said, "which I learned I just needed to shake off and focus on my music," Swift said in the suit.

The suit came as part of a larger dispute within the music industry over lyrical copyright. In 2015 artists Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams paid $5.3 million in a lawsuit to Marvine Gaye's family for copyright infringement over their song "Blurred Lines" which infringed on Gaye's "Got to Give It Up."

Lawsuit California