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Why Taylor Swift Re-Recorded ‘Red’
Taylor Swift just rolled out her album ‘Red’ recently, except ‘Red’ was released 9 years ago, so why re-release now? Well, Swift is making savvy business decisions that will change the music industry. Let me explain: 👇👇
Trouble:
Typically, recording artists sign with labels to record their music with the labels’ studio and distribution to the market. The artist gets a chunk of revenue from the sales, but the label retains ownership of the original recording aka “master”. Prior to 2018, Swift recorded 6 albums with Big Machine Records. After some bad blood between them, Swift is now with Universal Music Group. However, Big Machine still has the masters and own the rights to her 6 albums, valued at $300 million, and they’re still making money off them. So, Swift is re-recording her hits and releasing them as her own (“Taylor’s Version”). But can she, legally?
Copyright:
There are 2 copyrights to face: Substance and Transferability. Substance deals with song composition, arrangement and lyrics. Luckily for Swift, she writes her own songs, she’s in the clear for this. Transferability deals with what I talked about earlier, the ownership rights belong to Big Machine. So, Swift hired her own sound engineers and musicians to re-record, hence there’s 2 versions competing in the market.
Taylor’s Version:
Swift can’t erase her old songs or stop anyone from listening to the old versions, so she’s offering the new version as an upgrade. She added unreleased tracks and bonus material to increase fan interest. Coupled with her loyal fanbase, it makes the Big Machine version less valuable. “Red (Taylor’s Version)” broke records being the most-streamed album in a day (female) in Spotify history with 90.8 million streams on day one of release. By reclaiming the value of her own music, she also has more creative control in licensing deals.
Taylor Swift is not the first artist to re-record their songs, but she could be the most influential. Her public battle over ownership will influence the next generation of artists when it comes to artists’ rights.
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