A federal judge dismisses with prejudice a plagiarism lawsuit accusing Taylor Swift of using phrases from poems by Florida writer Kimberly Marasco in more than a dozen of her songs. According to multiple reports, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon rules that Marasco does not meet key legal requirements for the claim. The court says Marasco fails to show that her poems contain protectable expression. The judge also finds the plaintiff does not establish that Swift had seen the poems and that an average listener would consider Swift’s songs substantially similar to the allegedly copied material.
The case, filed about 14 months earlier, is ended by the court’s “with prejudice” dismissal, meaning it cannot be refiled. The outlets describe the decision as a defeat for Marasco and as a legal outcome that affirms Swift’s position in the dispute.
Overall, the dismissal is based on deficiencies in the plaintiff’s evidence and arguments regarding originality, access to the poems, and substantial similarity, rather than on a determination that Swift copied any specific protected text.
