Earlier in this month, the most popular Taylor Swift’s 2012 album “Red” was re-released which ignites rumours about continuously re-creating old tracks to new ones along with its lyrics across the social media platform. Swift’s decision to re-record her albums stems from a long-running legal battle over the rights of her first six albums’ master recordings. Swift granted label for its commercial rights to these albums as part of her first record that dealt with Big Machine Records who has been under new ownership since 2019. Swift’s dissatisfaction with the purchases along with her intention to re-record these albums and label them as “Taylor’s Version” to distinguish them from the older versions, avoiding trademark issues and making huge profits by commercializing, has been extensively documented in the media.

A master is the initial recording of a song, and the recording studio in Nashville with which Taylor is at odds, Big Machine, owns the masters of Taylor Swift’s first six albums. Taylor Swift was a new artist and a teenager when they made this contract. Swift just inked an agreement with Universal Music Group that gives her ownership of any new master records, but it does not extend to the master tracks owned by Big Machine. Braun still owns the rights to Swift’s earlier songs and gets licensing payments whenever a TV programme, streaming service, or film uses them, and, more significantly for Swift, he still has the power to decide who uses them. Taylor retains ownership of the songs she wrote, but not the recordings. It’s worth noting that this is a common occurrence among artists who face it. Perhaps it’s a holdover from before digital distribution, when recording corporations had a different role, and it’s time to replace that. So, roughly ten years later, Taylor attempted to reclaim her masters’ rights from Big Machine which was never completed and Scooter Braun, Taylor’s nemesis, has purchased all of those rights from Big Machine.

WHAT EFFECT WOULD IT HAVE ON HER ALBUM’S OLDER VERSION?

The older version of Taylor Swift’s album would remain available, and anyone looking for a licence to use it would have to contact either Scooter Braun or Taylor Swift. This is expected to lower the album’s value and start an ‘inverse bidding war’ between the adversaries, with the license-seeker benefiting because they would get a licence from whoever offered it for the lowest price. Swift, on the other hand, has already utilised her publishing rights to fight Braun’s attempts to profit from her recordings.

LEGALITY OF TAYLOR SWIFT RE-RECORDINGS

A music recording is a ‘bundle’ of copyrights, with several companies or persons owning the various constituent pieces and does not need to be registered for copyright protection. Under the Copyright Law, musical arrangements are protected as original musical works, whereas recordings of the words and music are protected as sound recordings.

The legality of re-recording, Swift’s can re-record the Masters because she is a singer and songwriter owning copyrights to both the music and lyrics of her songs.

The following needs to be noted regarding the legal aspects in the present matter:

Primarily, the legal factors in the present matter are mentioned below and need to be considered:

• Swift holds the Musical Composition copyright and the “sync rights” to all of the songs on her six albums, as well as the “sync rights” to her music. It explicilty implies that she has the authority to decide whether or not her music may be utilised in projects requiring a synchronisation licence (such as in advertisements, movies, and games). It is one of the smartest strategy of preventing anybody else from earning from her original Masters in this way.
• Song lyrics are protected as original literary works under Copyright Law which means Taylor Swift alone owns the underlying composition and publication rights and can re-record.
• By the time Swift began re-recording her old songs, her contract with Big Machine Label, which contained re-recording limitations, had expired. Due to expiration of the contract, Swift was permitted to re-record her earlier songs by November 2020 and to ensure that there was no note-to-note reconstruction in order to effectively re-record her masters, since her contract with Big Machine does not allow her to manufacture ‘copycat versions’ of the original masters, which we can all agree is a problem that she has successfully dealt with.

WHAT IF SUCH ISSUE AROSE IN INDIA?

The Indian Music Industry sneak-peak into Copyright Act, 1957 for protecting original and creative work. As mentioned explicitly per se in the Act, the lyricist can have a ‘Literary Work’ copyright, the musicians have a ‘Musical Work’ copyright, the singers have a ‘Performer’s Right’ copyright, and the person who produced the song would have the rights over the song as a whole, known as the Copyright over the ‘Sound Recording’ or the ‘Master Recording.’ In case these sound recordings/ master recordings are used to remake an old song, these rights come into question, as this “remake” as well as the works upon which it is based re protected by their own set of copyrights.

The Indian Copyright regime treats master recording copyright in the same way as copyright protection on a “sound recording”. Under the Indian Copyright Act of 1957, there is no legislative or legal recognition for “re-recording” masters. Cover Versions is an alternative to master re-recording that is legally recognised under Indian law. The 1957 Act currently allows an artist to get a Statutory License in order to create a cover version, but only 5 years after the original song was published.

WAY FORWARD

Although it is not unusual for a record label or music publisher to possess the rights to music that an artist believes they are entitled to, this has resulted in several legal battles over the years. While an artist may have signed a completely legal contract and earned a staggering amount of perks in exchange for turning up their masters, they have repeatedly said that they retain an underlying sense of ownership over every component of the music they have created.

John Locke’s “labour theory” of a property provides the most basic explanation for Taylor’s desire to safeguard her brand, as she has developed something that is “valuable,” and she has the right to exploit its value by denying others access to it. Taylor Swift was attempting to raise awareness about the one-sided nature of recording company contracts and their long-term consequences with her action. This will serve as a model for emerging artists in terms of understanding their rights and negotiating contracts that will allow them to own and preserve their legacy and work. On the contrary, this would imply that record labels would be more cautious with their contracts, maybe increasing the time period during which an artist is prohibited from re-recording their music from two to 10 years or whatever period as they deem fit.