The record companies charge against the success obtained by the “Taylor’s Version” of Taylor Swift and they protect themselves with contracts on their artists’ re-recordings.
Taylor Swift announced the re-recording of her albums in 2019, when her Big Machine Records label was sold to producer Scooter Braun, who obtained all the author licenses for her discography. Due to Swift’s growing success with her “Taylor’s Version,” with re-recordings replacing her original albums in listens and attention, record labels have reacted to the threat. Although the re-recording of hits and albums has been very common for years, it took a particularly sensitive case like that of the American singer for the industry to decide to get tough on this issue.
To protect themselves from happening again, large multinationals have decided to update contracts, adding clauses and terms so that artists cannot re-record their albums in a period between 10 and 30 years. Furthermore, it has been announced that the most representative companies in the music industry found a way to protect themselves from the imminent success of re-recordings. This phenomenon is nothing new, artists like FTA, Neil Young and, more recently, NSYNC They have re-released their songs to recover part of the rights to songs that were in the hands of record companies.
Now, companies are modifying their contracts which has generated controversy for limiting intellectual property rights, so it is believed that artists will seek music licensing contracts, that is, a record company only receives benefits for its distribution. This new war has only just begun.
