Marasco v. Swift

District court dismisses with prejudice copyright infringement claims alleging pop superstar Taylor Swift copied poet’s work in her songs, finding that claimed infringed aspects of plaintiff’s poetry were unprotectable generic ideas, concepts and metaphors.

Kimberly Marasco is a poet who has authored two books of poetry as well as a stand-alone poem titled “Noah.” In February 2025, Marasco filed suit alleging copyright infringement against pop superstar Taylor Swift; her record label, Republic Records; its parent company, Universal Music Group; and her former producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner. Marasco argued that some of the defendants’ songs utilized themes and metaphors that were similar to those in Marasco’s poems. For example, Marasco alleged that Swift’s song “The Man” infringed on her poem “Ordinary Citizen” because both described a woman working in a male-dominated office environment, and that the song “The Great War” and Marasco’s poem “The Fire” both use the metaphor of “desire as fuel and fire.” The defendants moved to dismiss Marasco’s second amended complaint on a variety of bases, including failure to state a claim.

The court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss in its entirety. It first held Marasco failed to state a claim for copyright infringement, because she did not assert that any of the allegedly infringed portions of her poems contained protectable expression. None of Marasco’s allegedly infringed works qualified as protectable expression, because each comprises unprotectable ideas, themes, metaphors, words and phrases. For instance, Marasco alleged infringement of metaphors such as “becoming the rain/storm” and phrases such as “flesh and blood” and “it’s time to go.” Such common metaphors and phrases are not protectable forms of expression under Section 501(a) of the Copyright Act. In all, the court found none of Marasco’s 12 counts alleging that a variety of defendants’ songs infringed her exclusive rights in various poems identified any protected expression.

As a separate but related ground for dismissal, the court also held that Marasco had failed to plead any substantial similarity between her poems and defendants’ songs. The court noted that the substantial similarity test initially requires an objective comparison between the original work and the allegedly infringing work, and as part of that comparison, unprotected elements must be filtered out. Because the elements of Marasco’s poems that were allegedly infringed were composed entirely of unprotectable elements, the court held that there could not, as a matter of law, be any substantial similarity. Accordingly, the court held that Marasco failed to state any claim for copyright infringement.

Even if Marasco’s allegedly copied elements were protectable, the court noted that she did not plausibly allege copying as required to state a claim for copyright infringement. The second amended complaint alleged no direct evidence of copying; therefore, Marasco had to show that defendants had access to her works and that the works are substantially similar.

Marasco’s allegations suggested that defendants had at least some degree of access to her work via the internet. Her substantial similarity claims failed, however, because “once the unprotectable elements are filtered out, nothing remains to compare,” said the court. Marasco also characterized the alleged copying as “paraphrase[s],” “rephrase[s]” and copying with “minor word substitutions,” none of which satisfy the substantial similarity standard.

Finally, because the second amended complaint failed on the foregoing substantive grounds, the court said it need not reach defendants’ remaining arguments on personal jurisdiction over Universal Music Group or on pattern, contributory or vicarious infringement. The court also noted that the defects were not curable by more careful drafting, and dismissed Marasco’s complaint with prejudice.

Summary prepared by Todd Densen and Edward Delman.