How are the Taylor Swift Re-recordings Legal?
Source: iHeartRadioCA
This file licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Prior to 2019 American Music Awards (AMA, for short), Taylor Swift claimed that her former label, Big Machine records, has blocked her from performing any of the songs on her old catalogue (prior to the release of the 2017 album, Reputation).
Do they have a right to do this?
Absolutely!
As the company owns the exclusive rights to her music, they are able to “reproduce, prepare, distribute, and publically perform” in any way they see fit (Exclusive rights in copyrighted works).
Music copyright is typically comprised of two different licenses – a composition license and a master license. The master license or master recording license is the right held by the person or entity who owns the recording of the song. The master license gives the user permission to use the original recording of the song for an audiovisual project, but does not allow the user to use a re-recorded version of the song (i.e. a cover). The composition license or prints rights license refers to the musical composition that the artist has written.
As Swift is the primary songwriter listed on all of her songs, she retains the copyright for the composition. And so, she is able to create a new recording, of whose master copyright she fully owns. The advantage of this is that Swift can now retain a good chunk of the income by making sure that her fans, companies, and other vendors, purchase rights to her new improved recordings – which she has called “Taylor’s Version” – rather than the rights to the original versions, that are still owned by Big Machine Records.
So, the biggest question that many are asking is: why is she doing this?
Besides the financial benefits, many have speculated that the true motivations behind Taylor’s decision lay in her contentious relationship with music manager, Scooter Braun.
Taylor has been signed under Big Machine Records since starting her career at the age of 15, and finally left a little more than ten years later, in 2018. Whilst she was there, she was barred from making any re-records of her previous albums.
When Taylor Swift switched record companies, one of her required stipulations was that she would own her own masters. This, however, only applied to her new material.
The masters for all of her old music now belonged to Scooter Braun.
Scooter Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings, LLC., acquired Big Machine, and all of its “recorded music assets,” in a deal made with Scott Borchetta. Scott and Taylor had a friendly, though professional, relationship as Big Machine Records was a small, independent recording label at its start. Swift’s father, Scott Swift, was also a major shareholder for the company. Though the final vote on the pending deal was passed with 3 out of 5 of the major shareholders voting in favor, Swift claims that that deal was done without her knowing, and that the company never gave her a chance to buy back her own masters.
She further portrayed Borchetta has a “traitor” for selling her master rights to Braun, and called the manager a “bully.” However, Borchetta, in a written response posted on the label’s website, contends this accusation by explaining that her management team and attorney went over the deal in detail and reported the terms back to her.
Whether that is true or not remains to be seen.
But what is not up for speculation is that 17 months after the deal, Scooter Braun sold the rights to Taylor’s masters to an investment fund. The deal reported closed north of $300 million, though some speculate it could be as high as $450 million (some have reported $480 million).
Swift’s main issue with Scooter Braun is not personal, but rather due to his professional ties to Kanye West. Their rivalry is a well-known one, dating all the way back to 2009, when Kanye West infamously interrupted Taylor’s Swift acceptance speech for Music Video of the Year. He snatched the mike away from her, and publically announced that Beyoncé, who had also been nominated for the category, had “one of the best videos of all time.” Then, later in 2016, Swift entered into a big fight with Kanye over his song, Famous. At the time, Braun was West’s manager, and he was working with the artist when the song was released. Taylor Swift kicked up a storm over the lyrics of the song: “I feel like me and Taylor might have s**. Why? I made that b**** famous.” The conflict was further amplified when the music video for the song was released, and at one point in the video model figures that were made in the likeness of several celebrities, which included Swift, appeared in the nude.
Regardless of the celebrity drama that permeated the situation, Taylor Swift has – unintentionally – given us a unique look into the world of music copyright. Armed with her own creativity, and immense social sway, Taylor Swift has managed to outsmart and wrestle control of her intellectual property away from the record labels and industry leaders, and has returned the power of the copyright holder back into the hands of the artist and creative. Don’t believe me? Case in point: when asked which version of Swift’s music they listen to, any die-hard Swiftie will say with a loyal assuredness: “Taylor’s Version!”
Sources:
https://hls.harvard.edu/today/how-taylor-swift-changed-the-copyright-game-by-remaking-her-own-music/
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=98b85aef-2092-4098-a36d-98302218271f
https://variety.com/2020/music/news/scooter-braun-sells-taylor-swift-big-machine-masters-1234832080/
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67237220
https://www.bigmachinelabelgroup.com/so-its-time-some-truth/
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/7/1/20677241/taylor-swift-scooter-braun-controversy-explained
The original purpose of copyright in Victorian England was not to protect authors’ (or even publishers’) rights, but to raise revenue for the government, as well as giving them the primary power over the ability to censor literary works. Many of these restrictions were authorized by the Licensing of the Press Act in 1662, and were enforced by the Stationers’ Company, a guild of printers that was regulated by the Court of Star Chamber, that held the exclusive power to print. These stifling modes of censorship (and press restrictions) did not sit well with authors and the public alike. As such, these regulations led to widespread protests that eventually ended the reign of the censors.
The Statue of Anne, named for the reigning Queen Anne, which was passed on April 5, 1710, was a milestone in copyright law. The bill was the first of its kind, as it advocated for the protection of an author’s intellectual property by emphasizing that the author – or creator – should be the primary beneficiary of copyright law, rather than the publishers. The new bill granted a prescribed copyright term of 14 years from the inception of the law, and 21 year to any published work, that was already in print. A provision for renewal was included in its terms, during which only the author and the printer, to whom their work was licensed, held exclusive rights to publication. Should the copyright be left to expire, the work in question would then fall into the public domain.
Though the Statue of Anne would later be replaced by the Copyright Act of 1842, the law would forever more be considered a “watershed event in Anglo-American copyright history.” Within the written provisions of this statue, included a myriad of first such as copyright protections that favored authors over publishers or guilds and the legal deposit schema (and precursor, one could say, to the modern day institutional repository). This statue, also, had an influence on copyright laws that were enacted in other countries – Denmark in 1741, the United States in 1790 (and later the Chase Act nearly a hundred years later in 1891), and France in 1793 (a tous la liberté!).
References: Nineteenth-Century British and American Copyright Law by Philip V. Allingham
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