Topics: News, Music, Taylor Swift
Record labels are trying to prevent artists from re-recording their albums for decades following the success of ‘Taylor’s Version’.
Taylor Swift has made it her mission to re-do six of her old albums so she can reclaim her music after it was owned by Scooter Braun.
She's made an absolute killing off the project and has thrown in a few songs from the vault with each record.
However, it seems like record companies aren't a massive fan of this happening so soon after the original album's release. Billboard reported that several huge labels are trying to implement new contract clauses that prevent artists from re-recording their music for an unprecedented 10 to 30 years.
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But they’re facing pushback from attorneys.
“The first time I saw it, I tried to get rid of it entirely,” said Josh Karp, a veteran attorney, who has viewed the new restrictions in some contracts, as per Billboard.
“I was just like, ‘What is this? This is strange. Why would we agree to further restrictions than we’ve agreed to in the past with the same label?'”
Gandhar Savur, attorney for Cigarettes After Sex, Built to Spill and Jeff Rosenstock, revealed that he recently saw a contract with a 30-year re-record restriction in it; something he's definitely not used to.
“I think the majors are also trying to expand their re-record restrictions but in a more measured way — they are generally not yet able to get away with making such extreme changes,” he told Billboard.
Taylor Swift has re-recorded four of her studio albums after Big Machine Records, unbeknownst to her, sold her masters to Braun in 2019.
The singer even tried repurchasing them before the deal with Scooter was finalized.
She wrote in a blog post: “For years, I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and 'earn' one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in.
“I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past."
While this may have inspired the new restriction from music labels, according to Josh Binder, an attorney representing SZA, Gunna, Doechii, and Marshmello, this situation is extremely ‘rare’.
Most artists rarely exercise their right to re-record their music.
“[The labels’] position is, ‘Hey, if we’re going to spend a bunch of money creating this brand with you, then you should not try and create records to compete with us.’ We try and fight it. We try and make it as short as possible. But I don’t find it to be the most compelling issue to fight,” he told Billboard.
