Kimberly Marasco Taylor Swift Lawsuit: $25M Claims and Status

The Kimberly Marasco Taylor Swift lawsuit is a pair of federal copyright infringement cases brought by a self-published Florida poet who claims Swift’s song lyrics, music videos, and Eras Tour visuals were copied from her poetry. The first case was dismissed with prejudice in September 2025 after a judge found Marasco’s claims involved only unprotectable ideas, themes, and common phrases. A second, broader lawsuit filed in February 2025 seeks $25 million in damages and remains pending, with Swift’s legal team asking the court to throw it out on the same grounds.

Who Kimberly Marasco Is and What She Alleges

Marasco is a poet based in Fort Pierce, Florida.¹²³

Marasco’s books were released through Outskirts Press and Ukiyoto Publishing. By the time she sued, they were not available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or other mainstream retailers, and her two poetry collections had a combined 15 reviews on Goodreads with average ratings below 3.0.⁴⁵ That distribution question would become central to both lawsuits.

The First Lawsuit and Its Dismissal

Marasco filed her first claim in Florida small claims court in April 2024, initially seeking $100 in damages and writer’s attribution credit. She named Taylor Swift Productions, Inc. as the sole defendant and alleged that Swift’s lyrics, themes, and concert visuals from the Eras Tour, including a chair dance routine, were “strikingly similar” to her poems.⁶⁵

The case moved to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in May 2024 and was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon. Marasco filed a second amended complaint in October 2024 that raised her damages request to more than $7 million.⁶

On September 29, 2025, Judge Cannon dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning Marasco cannot refile those particular claims. The court found that Marasco had “failed to state a plausible claim for copyright infringement” after being given multiple chances to amend. The poems at issue, Cannon ruled, contained only “general ideas, themes, and metaphors” and common words that fall outside copyright protection. Themes like “a female confronting adversity in a corporate environment” or “gaslighting” are not copyrightable. Neither are individual words such as “tears,” “rain,” and “sky,” or short common phrases.³

The court also held that Marasco had not shown Swift or her production company had any plausible access to the poems. Self-publishing books that were no longer readily available online did not amount to “wide dissemination,” and her assertion that the defendants had “combed through her works” was unsupported.⁴

The Second Lawsuit Seeking $25 Million

Marasco filed a new and expanded lawsuit in February 2025, before the first case had been resolved. This time she named Taylor Swift personally, along with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, Universal Music Group, and Republic Records. The case was docketed as 2:25-cv-14067 in the Southern District of Florida and reassigned to Judge Cannon in March 2025.⁷

The complaint alleges that 18 Swift songs and their music videos, along with an Instagram caption introducing the album The Tortured Poets Department, infringed on 14 of Marasco’s poems and the introduction to her book Fallen from Grace. The accused songs span several albums and include “The Man,” “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me,” “Hoax,” “Illicit Affairs,” “Clara Bow,” “Guilty as Sin,” and “Down Bad.”⁴ Marasco is seeking $25 million in damages.⁸

Defendants Dropped for Service Problems

Marasco has represented herself throughout both cases and has struggled with procedural requirements. Judge Cannon dismissed Taylor Swift as a defendant without prejudice because Marasco failed to serve the lawsuit on her in time.⁹ The court quashed service on both Antonoff and Dessner in September 2025. Marasco voluntarily dismissed Antonoff on October 1, 2025, and Judge Cannon dismissed Dessner in November 2025 for the same service deficiency.¹⁰ The case continues against Universal Music Group and Republic Records.

Marasco filed a first amended complaint on October 1, 2025, and was granted leave to file a second amended complaint on October 10, 2025. That version seeks disgorgement of profits from the allegedly infringing songs.⁷

Swift’s Motion to Dismiss

On December 4, 2025, Swift’s legal team, led by attorney Douglas Baldridge, filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice. The filing described Marasco’s case as “frivolous and harassing” and “absurd and legally baseless,” arguing that Marasco was trying to claim ownership of “concepts and words that cannot be owned by one person.”¹¹ The motion cites Judge Cannon’s September 2025 ruling, which already found Marasco’s poems contained only unprotectable “ideas, metaphors, contexts, and themes.” Swift’s attorneys also argued that seven of Marasco’s claims were time-barred and that she still had not shown how Swift or her collaborators could have accessed the self-published poetry.⁹

Marasco filed a response on December 8, 2025, arguing it was “too early to dismiss her case.”¹¹

Failed Bid to Block the Disney+ Documentary

On November 17, 2025, Marasco filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to block the release of The End of an Era, a Taylor Swift docuseries scheduled to stream on Disney+ starting December 12, 2025. She argued that broadcasting the series would cause “irreparable harm” by embedding the allegedly infringing material into cultural products “beyond Plaintiff’s reach.”¹² Judge Cannon denied the motion on December 22, 2025, stating it “clearly lacks a basis to grant the extraordinary relief sought.”¹³

Why the Claims Keep Failing

Copyright protects the specific way an author expresses something, not the underlying idea, theme, or emotion. The alleged similarities in Marasco’s cases turn on shared concepts such as heartbreak, gaslighting, patriarchal workplaces, and being “submerged under water,” plus common individual words like “heart,” “tears,” and “rain.” None of that rises to protectable expression under federal copyright law.³

Legal commentary on the litigation noted that Marasco’s filings also contain no forensic or technical comparison of the actual structure, melody, rhythm, or specific phrasing of the works. A forensic musicologist who reviewed her filings said they had “no melodic details, nothing rhythmic, nothing harmonic or structural.” What the complaint describes is shared sentiment, not shared expression.⁴

The access requirement poses a second problem. Where works are not “strikingly similar,” a copyright plaintiff must show the defendant had a reasonable opportunity to encounter the original. Marasco called her books widely disseminated, but they were effectively unavailable through standard retail channels. Her main evidence of publicity was a press release she distributed through IssueWire, which the court treated as self-submitted promotional material rather than proof of broad public exposure.⁴

Where the Case Stands Now

As of the last docket entry on December 22, 2025, the second lawsuit is still open. Judge Cannon has not ruled on the defendants’ motion to dismiss the second amended complaint. No trial date has been set, and Marasco continues to represent herself. The first lawsuit is closed.⁷

1
South China Morning Post. Who Is Kimberly Marasco? Author and Poet Suing Taylor Swift
2
Google Books. Swift Reflections: Poetry Inspirations
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Midpage. Marasco v. Taylor Swift Productions
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GW Law MCIR. Marasco v. Swift
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GovInfo. Marasco v. Taylor Swift Productions, Case No. 24-CV-14153
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Newsweek. Taylor Swift Being Sued, Aileen Cannon Judge
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CourtListener. Marasco v. Swift, 2:25-cv-14067
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Law360. Taylor Swift Wants Poet’s Frivolous $25M Suit Tossed
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Newsweek. Aileen Cannon Limits Taylor Swift Copyright Case Focus
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Music Business Worldwide. Taylor Swift Seeks to Have Poet’s Frivolous and Absurd Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Dismissed
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Billboard. Taylor Swift Asks Judge Dismiss Absurd Lyrics Lawsuit
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Newsweek. Woman Suing Taylor Swift Is Trying to Block Disney Documentary Release
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Newsweek. Woman Suing Taylor Swift Gets Bad News From Aileen Cannon