Background
Kimberly Marasco, representing herself, sued Taylor Swift, Universal Music Group, Republic Records, and songwriters Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner in the Southern District of Florida, alleging that Swift’s lyrics infringed her original poetry. Marasco claimed that more than a dozen songs — including “The Man,” “The Great War,” “Invisible String,” “Down Bad,” “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” — copied protected expression from her poems. The lawsuit sought $25 million in damages.
The defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that any overlap between Marasco’s poems and Swift’s lyrics involved only unprotectable ideas, themes, metaphors, and common words — not original expression that copyright law shields. By the time of the ruling, Antonoff and Dessner were no longer active defendants.
The Court’s Holding
Judge Aileen Cannon granted the motion to dismiss with prejudice on July 6, 2026. The court found that Marasco’s claimed overlaps amounted to “basic ideas and themes (a woman working in a corporate environment, being ‘gaslighted,’ confronting adversity); 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.” As Judge Cannon wrote, these “amount at most to ideas, metaphors, contexts, and themes — none of which is a proper subject of copyright protection.”
The court also held that Marasco had failed to plausibly plead copying. Copyright infringement requires both access — a reasonable opportunity for the defendant to have encountered the plaintiff’s work — and substantial similarity between the works’ protectable elements. Given the limited sales and marketing of Marasco’s poetry, the court found her allegations of access implausible. The dismissal with prejudice means Marasco cannot file an amended complaint, though she has stated she intends to appeal to the Eleventh Circuit.
Key Takeaways
- Copyright protects original expression, not ideas, themes, metaphors, emotions, or common phrases — even when the thematic overlap between two works is extensive.
- General concepts such as “a woman confronting workplace adversity,” or metaphors involving water, fire, storms, and tears, belong to the public domain and are available to all artists and writers.
- A plaintiff must plausibly allege both access and substantial similarity between protectable elements to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion in a copyright case — works with limited circulation may not satisfy the access requirement.
- Dismissal with prejudice on a motion to dismiss is appropriate when the complaint’s own allegations demonstrate no viable theory of infringement, leaving nothing to replead.
Why It Matters
This ruling reaffirms a bedrock principle: themes, emotions, and poetic metaphors — however deeply personal they feel to their author — are not protectable under copyright. This boundary matters far beyond celebrity litigation. It affects writers, musicians, filmmakers, and content creators generally: two artists can explore identical emotional terrain without either one infringing the other’s copyright, because what copyright protects is the specific, original words chosen to express an idea, not the underlying idea or feeling itself.
The case is also a reminder that pro se copyright suits alleging widespread infringement face rigorous scrutiny at the pleading stage. Courts will look carefully at whether the alleged similarities involve protectable expression or merely universal human experiences that no one can own. For businesses that license creative content or manage IP portfolios, the ruling reinforces that stylistic similarity or shared emotional themes are not sufficient grounds for a copyright infringement claim.