Taylor Swift 'Shake It Off' Lawsuit Dismissal Includes Dad Jokes and Footnotes on Memes

By Jia Tolentino  |  November 12, 2015 | 4:25pm
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An oldish R&B-singing troll named Jesse Braham (who, confusingly, goes by the stage name “Jesse Graham” and is also named in this lawsuit dismissal as JESSIE BRAHAM, PLAINTIFF) recently attempted, successfully, to get himself some extra publicity by suing Taylor Swift for $42 million. Judge Gail Standish of the US Central District Court in California has dismissed this lawsuit in quite pleasing fashion.

Braham’s complaint was that “Shake It Off” ripped off a song of his called “Haters Gone Hate.” The manner in which he alleged this was very extra:

Standish, in her dismissal, writes dryly, “The Court has been unable to identify a 22-word phrase that constitutes 92% of the lyrics of ‘Shake It Off’ or that is repeated 70 times as Braham alleges.” She also clarifies:

Braham’s lawsuit was obviously stupid. As Clover Hope noted previously:

Others who could’ve filed this same lawsuit:
3LW for “No More”
504 Boyz for “Hater’s Gon Hate”
Rakim for “Walk These Streets”
Black people

Gail Standish echoes this as well, making a short list of evidence that Taylor Swift did use some stuff here, but not Braham’s stuff.

Oh, you think I was just going to put that last bit in without also screenshotting the footnotes for “internet memes” and “animated GIFs”? I’d never.

That last sentence again:

In popular culture, GIFs are often used on the internet to convey humorous ideas, much like a meme.

Standish wraps up the dismissal beautifully.

LOL. Braham, ya crispy.

Image via YouTube

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