Mert & MarcusTaylor Swift is being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union after Taylor’s lawyers threatened to sue a blog publisher.
West Coast culture blog PopFront sought help from the civil rights organization after Swift’s lawyers sent a letter threatening to sue unless PopFront retracted an article that compared the lyrics of “Look What You Made Me Do” to chants at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and called on Taylor to denounce white supremacy and white supremacists who make use of her music.
Lawyers for Taylor claimed the article was defamatory. But in its response, the ALCU asserts that the material Taylor’s lawyers claim is defamatory is constitutionally protected opinion.
“This is a completely unsupported attempt to suppress constitutionally protected speech,” said ACLU of Northern California attorney Michael Risher in a statement on the group’s website.
Although the letter from Swift’s lawyers end with a notice claiming that publishing it would be a copyright violation, the ACLU did post the letter to it’s website, arguing that its reproduction is legal fair use and that, attaching it to their response, “transforms it from a clumsy legal threat to suppress constitutionally protected speech into an exposé of that attempt in order to educate others who might receive these types of letters that they need not be intimidated.”
PopFront wrote, “At a time when the press is under constant attack from the highest branches of government, this cease and desist letter is far more insidious than Swift and her lawyer may understand. The press should not be bullied by legal action nor frightened into submission from covering any subject it chooses. Swift’s scare tactics may have worked in the past, but PopFront refuses to back down because we believe the First Amendment is more important than preserving a celebrity’s public image.”
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