To understand it better, consider one of the most famous covers of the music: “All Along the Watchtower”. “I have clients who have re-recorded their big hits,” LaPolt said. “We have collective societies that are very, very knowledgeable about this area, and they have gone to all the music supervisors of all the film and television companies. These companies all know that they have to come to the [new distributor] and get a license for the new records because it will be much cheaper, and that`s what the artist wants. Taylor Swift, still the ambitious pop star, is starting her craziest project yet – re-recording six of her nine albums from scratch. It goes without saying that the re-registration process will be a tedious task, but I`m sure Tay would love to have the opportunity to laugh in Scooter Braun`s face because he thought he could buy his Masters and get away with it. ̄_(ツ)_/ ̄ “My contract stipulates that from November 2020, next year, I will be able to record albums one to five again. I`m very excited,” Swift said Thursday on “Good Morning America.” “I just think artists deserve to own their work. I just feel very passionate about it. The way major labels would do this, according to LaPolt, is to tighten re-registration restrictions. Currently, an artist is generally prohibited from re-recording music they make for a label for three to seven years after its release. In the future, labels could try to increase the duration of this restriction to 20 or 30 years, or even extend it permanently. It`s almost a no-brainer they`re going to try,” LaPolt said.
A provision in Swift`s deal with Big Machine Records states that she will be allowed to re-record her own songs from November 2020, so Swift has committed to that. This allows Swift to own new original recordings due to her contract with UMG and essentially create a cover of her own songs. Copyright therefore gives it some control over who uses its newly recorded music, and it can collect royalties on licenses for newly recorded music. Short answer: It depends on the sound of the new songs. According to TMZ, Big Machine Records has an “original production clause.” This clause essentially forbids Taylor to make his upcoming songs sound exactly like the original versions, so to compensate, Taylor must ensure that his new recordings stand out from his old ones to avoid legal problems. At this point, it is important to understand how the copyright of a song works. The U.S. copyright laws applicable in this case provide for two types of music rights. First, “master rights” and second, “publishing rights” or “synchronization rights”.
As briefly explained above, primary rights allow licensees to use the recording of a song. Sync rights, on the other hand, are important when music is used with a moving image, such as in movies and games. Sync rights also include rights to musical compositions. In order to legally use a song, the producer of a television program or advertisement would need different permissions from the sync rights holders and the primary rights holders. There are two different copyrights at stake here: that of the composition of the song (the musical arrangement and lyrics) and that of the recording itself. And “the copyright of the song is offset completely separately from the royalty for recording the song,” said David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers Association. And “because Taylor writes her own songs, she can do it without much effort. If someone else were to write their songs, you would have to go through a different process. Taylor Swift recently announced that she will be re-recording her first 6 albums – a direct response to Scooter Braun`s $300 million deal to acquire Scott Borchetta Big Machine Label Group.
Fearless: Taylor`s version is already finished and will contain 26 songs, six of which have never been released before. The six newcomers almost got into the editing of the 2008 album Fearless, but stayed in the vault all the time. “Love Story (Taylor`s Version)” was released ahead of the next album on February 12, 2021. The fully re-recorded studio album will debut on April 9, 2021. Given a cover of “Love Story” at the beginning of Swift`s new recordings, fans may have questions about what she can and can`t do. “My contract says that from November 2020. albums one to five,” Taylor Swift said on Good Morning America in 2019. Rolling Stone also commented on the situation in 2019 with music attorney Rachel Stilwell, who stated that “recording agreements almost always prevent artists from re-recording musical compositions included in the label`s recordings for a number of years after the recording contract expires.” In this context of young teenage artists, Swift`s struggles take on even more importance.