A Florida Poet Attempted to Sue Taylor Swift for Plagiarism

Florida Woman Takes On Taylor Swift

If you're going to take on Taylor Swift, you had better have your act together. Of the many people who have attempted to sue Taylor Swift in the past, few have succeeded. One little-known Florida poet, Kimberly Marasco, recently attempted this feat, and, like most others, she was unsuccessful. The author has written multiple poems and published a couple of small poetry collections, which she admits are not being promoted and have only sold around 3,000 copies. The author, who sued Swift, Aaron Dessner, Republic Records, and Universal Music Group, claims they used her ideas in her poems to create songs like "The Man" and "The Great War", among others. Ultimately, the judge ruled in Swift's favor, pointing out that themes and ideas cannot be protected as they are not words, but thoughts. The author had previously attempted to file suit against Swift last September, but the case was dismissed. While the details of the lawsuit are somewhat difficult to understand, the plaintiff sued on the premise that Swift's lyrics were stolen from the ideas she had written about in her poetry books. Here's the best breakdown I could find from ABC News:

Self-published poet Kimberly Marasco alleged Swift infringed on her rights in various poems she had written between 2017 and 2021, which Swift denied.

"Among the allegations in her lawsuit, which identified several Swift songs released between 2019 and 2024, Marasco claimed that Swift infringed on her poem "Ordinary Citizen" -- which contained the line, "I'm running behind / You say it's His word against mine" -- with Swift's song "The Man," which contains the lyric, "I'm so sick of running as fast as I can / Wondering if I'd get there quicker if I was a man." Both the poem and Swift's song describe a woman working in a male-dominated office environment, Marasco alleged. Marasco also alleged Swift's song "The Great War" (with the lyrics "Diesel is desire, you were playing with fire") infringed on her poem "The Fire" (which contains the line "Anger fuels our desire ... I'm fighting fire with fire") because both use the metaphor of "desire as fuel and fire.""