Taylor Swift and Utah theme park both drop lawsuits against each other over trademark infringement claims without settlements

Taylor Swift has finally ended her legal dispute with a Utah theme park that accused her of trademark infringement.

The singer, 31, was hit with a lawsuit by Evermore Park in February, with theme park bosses claiming Taylor’s album Evermore – that she surprised fans with at the end of last year – ‘negatively impacted’ on its business.

Evermore Park said Taylor’s release and merchandise caused ‘actual confusion’ with the theme park’s visitors who questioned whether it was in collaboration with Taylor. Bosses accused the star of trademark infringement and wanted to be paid ‘$2million (£1.47m) per counterfeit mark’ plus additional damages and costs.

Taylor’s legal team, however, branded the suit ‘frivolous and baseless’ and issued a counter-suit, suing the theme park, based in Pleasant Grove, Utah, for using her music without permission.

A spokesperson for Taylor has confirmed that both suits have now been dropped without a monetary settlement.

‘As resolution of both lawsuits, the parties will drop and dismiss their respective suits without monetary settlement,’ the Grammy-winner’s rep told Metro.co.uk.

It came after Taylor’s TAS Rights Management team had countersued Evermore Park for wilful copyright infringement. Documents filed claimed the park had been ‘routinely’ using Taylor’s songs ‘without authorisation or licence agreement’.

They claimed that Evermore Park had been using songs – including Bad Blood and Love Story – for over a year and ignoring repeated warnings from BMI, which protects and collects revenue for artists.

Documents claim Evermore Park only contacted BMI as Taylor was preparing to issue her lawsuit against the attraction and the Shake It Off hit-maker’s teams were asking for damages, as well as for the park to be permanently banned from playing Taylor’s music.

Following Evermore Park’s initial suit against Taylor, her legal team shot down the trademark infringement claims – insisting that Taylor’s merchandising products were different to the park and accusing its owners of ‘looking for money’.

‘The fact is, this frivolous claim is coming from Ken Bretschneider, founder and CEO of an experience park and according to Utah Business, “As of June 2020, at least five lawsuits have been filed against Bretschneider and the Evermore group by major construction companies like Sunroc, AGC Drywall and Construction, Geneva Rock, Mountain Point Landscaping, EME Mechanical, Kreativ Woodworks, and NFH Distributing (Beehive Brick and Stone),”‘ the statement read.

‘The companies claim “they are owed between $28,000 and $400,000.” Utah Business says, “he owes millions of dollars in construction, mechanic, and landscaping fees to workers across the valley who have yet to be paid”… with “a collection of more than 20 construction liens on the Evermore property.” The true intent of this lawsuit should be obvious.’

Evermore was a follow-up album released in December last year to Taylor’s number one album Folklore that dropped over the summer amid the pandemic.

It stormed to the top of the charts just like Folklore ha done and saw Taylor secure two number one albums in one year.

Taylor revealed plans to release the sister record on Instagram, as she told fans: ‘It’s called evermore. To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs. To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in. I’ve never done this before.’

Metro.co.uk has reached out to Taylor Swift’s rep and a spokesperson for Evermore Park for comment.

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