Taylor Swift wins copyright lawsuit over woman claiming she copied her poems
A poet alleged that Taylor Swift copied lyrics from her poems for more than a dozen songs featured on her albums including 'Lover,' 'Folklore,' 'Evermore' and 'Midnights.'
Taylor Swift has won a court ruling to dismiss a copyright lawsuit from poet Kimberly Marasco, who alleged some of the singer’s lyrics were a copyright infringement of her poems, according to an order on the motion to dismiss.
Marasco alleged that Swift copied lyrics from her poems for more than a dozen songs featured on her albums Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department, according to her lawsuit filed in February 2025.
In the ruling, viewed and obtained by Global News, Judge Aileen Cannon granted a motion to dismiss the case on Monday, stating that Marasco’s poems and Swift’s songs share “basic ideas and themes” such as a woman working in a corporate environment, being “gaslighted” and confronting adversity.
“These are quintessential themes, concepts, and isolated words—exactly the kind of material copyright law does not protect,” Cannon wrote in the order.
Other basic ideas included, “Ubiquitous metaphors (being ‘submerged’ under water, ‘tears as weapons,’ ‘desire as fuel and fire,’ becoming ‘the rain/storm’); and isolated common words and short phrases (‘tears,’ ‘running,’ ‘fire,’ ‘rain,’ ‘sky,’ ‘love,’ ‘invisible,’ ‘caged me,’ ‘flesh and blood,’ ‘it’s time to go’),” the order said.
Cannon also wrote that “the allegedly infringed material — basic ideas, themes, metaphors, isolated words, and short phrases — is not protected expression and cannot be infringed.”
“The Court concludes that Plaintiff’s poems do not contain protectable expression and that, regardless, Plaintiff has failed to plausibly plead copying. Dismissal is warranted on those independent grounds, and the Court need not reach Defendants’ remaining arguments,” Cannon wrote.
Cannon said that due to the poet’s previous lawsuits against Swift, she was not giving Marasco the opportunity to fix and refile her suit against the pop star.
“Plaintiff has had ample opportunity to plead her claims; she was expressly warned that the Second Amended Complaint would be her final opportunity and further amendment would be futile,” the judge wrote.
In December 2025, Swift’s legal team filed a motion to dismiss, calling Marasco’s claims “absurd and legally baseless.”
“This is Plaintiff’s second frivolous and harassing lawsuit against Artist asserting copyright infringement claims,” the motion to dismiss read. “Despite having no conceivable case against Artist, and after being expressly informed by this Court that her allegedly infringed ‘expressions’ are not protectable under copyright law, Plaintiff filed yet another meritless lawsuit and expanded her groundless campaign to include Defendants UMGI and Republic.”
Swift’s legal team noted that the concept of betrayal or the words “fire” or “love” cannot be owned by one person because they are “basic themes or words” that are “not protectable by copyright law.”
“Plaintiff has wasted the time and resources of Artist, the other Defendants, and this Court for long enough. This case is legally and factually meritless and should, again, be dismissed with prejudice,” Swift’s legal team wrote.
Global News has reached out to Swift’s legal team for comment on the ruling, but has not received a response.
Marasco told Rolling Stone that she disagrees with the decision on Monday’s ruling and will be appealing it.
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Swift was also recently sued by Las Vegas performer Maren Wade who said her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, violates her trademark rights, according to Wade’s complaint.
Wade said in the complaint that marketing for Swift’s album threatened to “drown out” her long-running Confessions of a Showgirl stage show and asked the court to block Swift from creating confusion with her album title.
— with files from Reuters
This story was originally published by Global News on July 7, 2026. CityAM Canada is republishing it for our Canadian readers.