It’s my understanding that she’s planning to make them awfully similar. One of the specific reasons she mentioned is that doing this will diminish the value of the masters. She also mentioned that it’ll give her fans a way to listen to her older music without Scooter getting royalty payments.
IOW, she’s not doing this for fun, though she mentions she wants to feel like she’ll own her own music again, but more importantly, it’s a big FU to Scooter/Big Machine.
That’s true, but when it comes to music recordings, parodies are an entirely different thing than covers or samples. You don’t need permission to do a parody, especially since it’s not likely that someone is going to buy a parody instead of the original, like they might with a cover.
Right, but your ability to license music to make a new sound recording isn’t dependent on your motive. And again, the record company doesn’t own the compositions.
As I said above, you also don’t need permission to do a cover. You need a license. In most cases, you can get a license without getting permission. The license is compulsory. It’s entirely different than a parody, but the main difference is that a parody owes no royalties. When it comes to a cover, if you pay, you’re good. And Taylor Swift is largely paying herself for the licenses.
So then why the wait? What was Taylor talking about when she said that as of November 17th, according to a contract, she’s not legally allowed to re-record her old music?
Yes, he asks. Coolio claims he said no about Gangsta Paradise, but Al says he had given permission. I think Coolio was mad because Amish Paradise is so amazing that a lot of people start thinking of it when they hear that opening beat.
I think there are a few others that said no or at least some studios that shut him down.
He can do whatever, though. He does re-record the music, right? He doesn’t even use the music and lay over his voice. He redoes the whole thing, I think.
But Weird Al pretty much uses the same music with different lyrics. Does that make a difference? Recall people have been sued and lost because they used similar music to another song.
Because maybe at some point she signed a contract agreeing not to re-record her music for X period of time. You can agree to almost anything in a contract. Record companies notoriously screw over artists by hiding onerous terms in recording contracts.
That’s why you need your own lawyer to review the contract with a fine tooth comb.
A parody is not infringing. Period. It’s protected as fair use.
People have been sued and lost because they used similar music to another song, and they had no parody defense, because it wasn’t a parody of the original song.
It’s also possible she couldn’t have anticipated the whole Scooter situation when she signed the contract, so she wouldn’t have otherwise considered it a problem before.
Weird Al put out his Star Wars ep. 1 parody so fast because he bought a ticket to a showing before it was out to the public. I think it was for charity and cost him $1000.
I don’t like Taylor Swift’s music, don’t care for the drama, but…if this were someone I liked, say Led Zeppelin or Wings or whatever, and they decided they were going to do this, I woudn’t buy the new ones. They aren’t the songs I liked. I can tell the difference.
What she is doing seems, well, a little wrong, from a fan perspective. [waves Jedi fingers] These ARE the songs you are looking for.
I believe he had cobbled together the entire song before seeing the movie, though. I think the movie screening was mainly to make sure he got it mostly right.
How did Al get the plot , did he get a script copy before he saw it?
Come on, she isn’t trying to deceive anybody. Fans are free to choose whichever version of the albums they want to listen to. And people re-record music all the time, or remaster them, or release live versions. I have Van Morrison’s original recording of Astral Weeks and I have the live version he recorded 40 years later. I’m happy to have the choice.
I actually admire someone with her pull sticking it to a record company like this.
I think part of that is because in the mid to late 90’s Weird Al was at, what I’d guess, was the height of his career. He had songs getting regular airplay on MTv (All About the Pentiums, IIRC, was huge). Whether or not his version was better than Coolio’s, he had a lot of fans and was borderline ‘mainstream’.
I think her fans are pretty loyal to her. I can see where you’re coming from, but what she’s doing also makes sense.
Besides, no one is forcing anyone to only buy (or re-buy) her new music. At least part of this is just a big ol’ fuck you to Scooter.
Internet spoilers. Not kidding.
lots of bands/artists put out alternate takes on songs. Sometimes they are put on greatest hits albums as bonus tracks.
She should have known what sort of douchebag Scooter Braun is. She’s not the first client he’s screwed over