Why Analysing Taylor Swift Lyrics On Medium Could Have Got Me Sued
I didn’t want to “shake off” any lawsuits
Originally I wrote this article analysing the lyrics to “Shake it off” by Taylor Swift. I included the lyrics and then wrote a short summary of my thoughts at each part of the song and submitted it to the Illumination publication. However, it was unfortunately rejected by one of the editors there, Jennifer Geer. It turned out this rejection wasn’t so unfortunate after all!
Jennifer Geer advised me the reason for the rejection was that without due permission you aren’t actually able to include lyrics to songs in blog/self published articles online. She helpfully shared the following article with me.
Needless to say, I did not want to be sued by Taylor Swift so I was very grateful for the rejection! I genuinely didn’t know this rule about song lyrics but it was a nice reminder of the importance of checking whether you have the relevant permissions before posting articles online. Alternatively, I guess I could have sought Taylor’s permission although I…
