She does not legally own her older albums so her plan is to rerecord all of the music. Sounds like a good plan
Wonder what the legal implications of ‘covering yourself’ are.
I imagine she would have to pay some pretty substantial licensing fees.
she only has to pay songwriters if she did not write the song. The issue is the recording of the songs that she does not own.
She planned to do this when her catalog was first sold over a year ago. It was just resold so it’s back in the news. Plus it may now be contractually possible for her to do so.
Sounds a little like what Squeeze did for their album Spot the Difference.
I believe her original agreement from when she first recorded them allows her to re-record them as of today or yesterday. Which is why she’s just starting it now.
Personally, I think as a protest, radio stations (and iTunes) should refuse to play all her old Big Machine stuff and wait until she rerecords everything. We’re all going to be okay if we don’t hear her old music for the next few weeks.
Someone just paid $300 million dollars for those masters and it’s fair to assume they’re expecting a return on that investment. If royalties dry up, they might be willing to sell it back to her at a significant loss just to get something back for it.
I read the story, like Taylor Swift’s music, don’t care to follow the melodrama. At the end of the day, was she genuinely treated badly? If so, seems like a good idea to re-record. Why not?
I don’t know that she was treated worse than any other young/new artist, it’s just that she’s immensely more popular, so her masters are worth more, and she’s very, very vocal about these things and has exactly zero issue publicly calling people out on their bullshit.
Unless you’re a diehard fan or a completist, who would buy new versions when they already own the originals? I’m a big Squeeze fan but am not tempted to buy their 2010 re-recordings.
I see what you did there?
That didn’t take long!
I don’t think this is about re-buying records you currently own. It’s about people buying an album for the first time, or downloading a song in iTunes, or the version a radio station chooses to play. Taylor wants all that directed towards her re-releases so she gets paid instead of the current owner of her music.
I think a lot of Taylor Swift fans will enjoy listening to some of their favorite albums redone by Taylor, but with 15ish years of experience under her belt. Even if she does them more or less the same, there’s still going to be a noticeable difference between 17 year old Taylor and 30 year old Taylor.
What did I miss ? What’s been goin’ on ??
This is important to her. Her work was scammed/tricked/grifted/stolen from her in her mind.
She must feel in her heart that she needs to do this to make things right.
The Art of music is Passion. Who am I to judge her passion?
This kind of thing seems to happen a lot. You hear a lot of huge stars talking about how, when [huge song] was on the radio, they were all still living in one house and working second jobs to make ends meet.
One thing I’ve always thought is that artists should be required to have some kind of representation when singing their first deal. If you want to fly solo after that, it’s up to you, but someone sitting in the room with them that understands the industry and can advise them about exactly how shitty of a deal they’re getting. A lot of these artists mention that they signed these awful deals because they simply didn’t understand how bad they were or were purposely mislead because the record company knew they didn’t know what they were getting into.
I can understand a record company being weary of a brand new artist and tilting the tables in their direction so they break even sooner, but some of these deals where the band gets something like a nickel per album sold should be considered predatory and there should be rules against it.
At the very least, maybe somehow the original artist(s) can’t sign away all their rights to the masters. That way they always retain at least some control and, at the very least, whatever other people do with them, they still collect at least some royalties from them.
Art as a commodity doesn’t seem like a great way to spawn creativity and new/good music.
First of all, Taylor Swift writes many of her songs herself, so she controls the composition rights, which include licensing sound recordings of new performances. So, if she’s licensing to herself, she gets a good deal, right?
Second, it’s very easy to license a composition to make a new sound recording. That’s why covers are so common. The music copyright system is structured that way. Just make sure you file the right papers and pay the right fees and royalties, and you’re good to go. It should be no problem for her. You don’t even need to get permission in most cases, so long as you are paying what’s due.
Third, what the record company owns is the actual sound recording that was made. The record company doesn’t own the composition rights–those are retained by the songwriter or es publishing company. They have zero say in anyone getting to make new recordings.
The problem might come in if Taylor Swift’s new recordings are too exactly like the original. That might pose some small risk.
That’s what she’s doing. She’s rerecording her first five(?) albums.
She’s re-recording the albums. That doesn’t mean that the sound recordings themselves will be exactly identical.
I read Weird Al does not have to but he asks permission from the songwriter when he does his parodies. He also said the only guy who said no was Prince