Question of rights at stake: Standoff between Taylor Swift and her former record company (II)

After several years of fighting against his record company Warner Bros, of which he called himself the “slave”, he was finally freed from his contract in 1996.

“If you don't control your masters, they control you,” he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1996.

In many contracts, the producer is designated as the owner of the masters, in return for taking financial risk.

As in the case of Taylor Swift, who made her first commitment at 15 when she was unknown, the balance of power at the time of signing the contract is often favorable to the record company.

Some artists have nevertheless obtained control of their recordings, notably Rihanna, U2 or Jay-Z, often by buying them back at a high price once they have become famous.

Some young artists have also achieved this more recently, including rapper XXXTentacion, murdered in 2018.

“Signing and keeping the biggest artists in the world, or even a newcomer that the record companies are snapping up, has become much more expensive,” says Larry Miller, director of the music economics program at the New York University (NYU).

“Some houses are sometimes ready to do things contrary to the way their economic model works,” according to him.

The record companies nonetheless retain overall control, thanks to their ability to “make” a star.

If producing music is now accessible to everyone, recognizes Larry Miller, “there is a big difference between being a talent to be discovered and having an army of people working to make you the greatest artist.”

Question of rights at stake: Standoff between Taylor Swift and her former record company (I)

The tone is rising between Taylor Swift and her former record company, which she accuses of preventing her from singing her own songs with, at the center, the question of the rights to her recordings.

This is a new stage in the dispute between the princess of pop and the music industry mogul Scooter Braun.

Standoff between Taylor Swift and her former label, the question of rights at stake

In June, the businessman's company bought Taylor Swift's record label, Big Machine, which owns the recordings made by the singer for her first six albums.

Arriving at the end of her contract in November 2018, the 29-year-old artist joined Universal, with whom she released her seventh opus, Lover, and publicly explained that Big Machine had not allowed her to recover the rights to her records.

In a blog post Thursday, she accused Scooter Braun and Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta of warning her team that she wasn't even allowed to sing her old songs on television.

“This would amount to re-recording [s]her music before [she] has the right to do so, next year,” the two leaders would have explained, according to Taylor Swift.

In August, the one who began her career in country announced that she wanted to re-record her songs to regain control of her works, a project she confirmed again on Thursday.

According to Taylor Swift, these threats risk preventing her from singing a compilation of her greatest hits during the American Music Awards (AMA) ceremony on November 24.

They also deprive her, according to her, of using songs and old videos in a documentary on her life produced by Netflix.

Everything for the “masters”

The record company goes further and claims that the singer owes it, contractually, “millions of dollars”.

Still according to the group, discussions have been held in recent months between the two parties, and it was “optimistic about a possible resolution, until yesterday”, Thursday.

The managers accuse him of having “appealed to his fans in a calculated manner, which has significant consequences for the safety of [their] employees and their families”.

They nevertheless made a new call for dialogue, accusing him of having refused a direct exchange until now.

The issue of rights is not new in the recording industry.

Prince is probably the artist who most embodied this struggle of artists to have ownership of their “masters”, or master tapes, the original recordings.

(to be continued)