Singer Taylor Swifts lawyers have asked a federal judge to dismiss the copyright lawsuit regarding her 2014 hit track "Shake it off".
According to the lawyers' argument on Wednesday, the phrase "players gonna play and haters gonna hate" is a musical cliché that should be in the public domain, reports variety.com.
In a footnote, they also cited numerous other references to "players" and "haters" in pop culture, including the 1977 song "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, which includes the lyric -- "Players only love you when they are playing", and "Playa hater", the 1997 Notorious B.I.G. song.
Swift was sued in September, 2017 by songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler. They have also co-penned "Playas gon' play" for the girl group 3LW in 2001.
The chorus of that song includes the phrase, "Playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate".