Poet's copyright lawsuit against Taylor Swift tossed again

A federal judge in Florida dismissed with prejudice a copyright lawsuit brought against Taylor Swift by self-published poet Kimberly Marasco, ruling (not for the first time!) that the material Marasco claimed Swift stole is not protected by copyright at all.

Marasco alleged that more than a dozen songs from Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department lifted from poems she wrote between 2017 and 2021. Among her claims: that "The Man" infringed her poem "Ordinary Citizen" because both describe a woman in a male-dominated workplace, and that "The Great War" copied her poem "The Fire" because both use fire as a metaphor for desire.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon found these elements (including words such as "tears," "fire," "rain" and "love," and the concept of gaslighting) were generic ideas and short phrases that no one can own. Because a nearly identical suit from Marasco was dismissed in September 2025 and she had been warned this complaint was her last chance, Cannon denied leave to amend. Marasco told ABC News she has filed an appeal. From the ruling:

As this Court already determined… it's not protected expression and cannot be infringed.

Judge Cannon threw out Marasco's first suit against Swift last year on the same grounds.

If the lawsuit seems ridiculous, consider that it's typically cheaper to pay off even baseless claims. If the cost of hiring a lawyer is greater than the cost of paying a settlement, the rational thing to do is pay the settlement—a fact well-exploited by intellectual property trolls.

Ed Sheeran spent years fighting claims over "Thinking Out Loud" before a jury cleared him in 2023 and the Second Circuit affirmed his win in a related case, holding that a common four-chord progression can't be monopolized. Sheeran, who calls such suits damaging to songwriting, now films all of his songwriting sessions so he can produce footage proving independent creation whenever a claim arrives.

Swift, for her part, has shaped copyright law from the other direction: her re-recorded "Taylor's Version" albums demonstrated how artists can reclaim control of their work, as Brett Milano wrote for Harvard Law Today.

No major artist had previously invested the time and energy to re-record their catalogue, but Swift's move paid off, as the new versions were major commercial and critical successes. When Greenstein asked the class whether they listened to the originals or to Taylor's Version, most picked the latter.