As Taylor Swift would say, “Look what you made me do.” Following a lawsuit that accused the pop superstar of lifting her album name “Evermore” from an amusement park in Utah, the famously feisty litigant is hitting back with legal action of her own.
Refusing to shake it off, the “Cardigan” singer-songwriter, 31, is countersuing Evermore Park, in Pleasant Grove — for spinning unlicensed Taylor Swift tunes.
Earlier this month, theme park officials accused the “Bad Blood” singer of trademark infringement over the Evermore name, claiming that her album had caused “actual confusion and negatively affected their search engine placement,” the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Swift’s attorneys called their claims “baseless,” and ignored the cease-and-desist letter sent to her camp on December 18.
Now, TAS Rights Management, Swift’s trademark and music rights team, is alleging that Evermore Park has been playing the pop star’s music “without authorization or license agreement,” according to Rolling Stone. The suit specifically names the songs “Love Story,” “You Belong to Me” and “Bad Blood.”
Turns out, the park has been in hot water over unlicensed music for some time: In 2019, performance rights organization BMI sent letters to alert Evermore of the breach — to no avail.
Evermore eventually responded to the letters, Swift’s attorneys have said, but only after learning of her currently pending countersuit.
“In the past, letters have been mailed to your attention along with licenses reflecting your music usage fee of $1,728.67 (USD) for the period of May, 2019 to December, 2019 only,” according to court documents obtained by Pitchfork. “This fee does not include all other unlicensed periods in which you were using music.”