@ViCiouS
OK cuz...
we may finally have a definitive comprehensive breakdown...
Taylor Swift, intellectual property law, and due dilligence disasters
In 2005, 13-year-old aspiring country singer Taylor Swift signed a record deal with 0-year-old aspiring label Big Machine Records.
Under this 2005 agreement, Swift conveyed the ownership rights for the recordings of her (yet-to-be-produced) first six albums to Big Machine.
Swift produced these six albums between 2006 and 2017. The albums were wildly successful; Swift and Big Machine prospered together.
At the conclusion of this six-album deal, Swift and Big Machine negotiated briefly but failed to establish a new deal for additional records.
A rumored stumbling point in negotiations: Swift wanted to reacquire ownership of her six-album back catalog.
In 2019, Swift signed a new deal to release her future albums through Republic Records, leaving Big Machine in her rear view mirror.
Big Machine was a small label. Swift had been a v big fish in their small pond.
Big Machine still owned Swift's first six album recordings in perpetuity, but without an ongoing deal with Swift, Big Machine was a small firm with a yuge mostly-passive asset on its balance sheet.
In 2019, Big Machine Records was acquired by Ithaca Holdings, which is helmed by Scooter Braun, a music industry businessman.
Financial backing for this transaction was provided by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. The acquisition price was a reported $300 million.
I'm not sure how much of this $300 million valuation can be attributed to the recording rights for Swift's first six albums. I've seen estimates in the $100m-$200m range; this seems plausible.
(for comparison, the Beatles' recording rights are valued in the low ten figures.)
I'd love to know how the Carlyle Group thought about this transaction. What was their due diligence process? What risks did they identify w/r/t the value of the recordings of Swift's back catalog?
Whatever their dd was, I suspect they were surprised by what happened next.
Swift immediately condemned the deal, suggesting that Big Machine's management had cruelly denied her the opportunity to reacquire her own back catalog.
I think unhappy words from the artist are par for the course in a situation like this. But Swift ventured further and began doing real damage: She began to block all use of her back catalog in films and commercials.
But wait - if she doesn't own her old records, how can she block their use? Here's how:
In order to use a recorded song in a film, a filmmaker must acquire two different kinds of licenses.
First, a filmmaker must obtain a license to synchronize the song with visual imagery in the film - a "sync license".
A sync license is not for a particular recording, but for the abstract idea of the song itself.
A filmmaker needs a sync license even if the film isn't using a preexisting recording. A character in the film picks up a guitar and plays and sings a song themselves? Gotta get a sync license to put that song in the film.
Second, if a filmmaker wishes to use an existing recording of the song for which they have obtained sync rights, the filmmaker must obtain a "master use license" from the owner of the master/recording.
Master use rights originate with recording artists. Big Machine acquired Swift's rights as a recording artist, so they can grant master use licenses.
However, sync rights originate with songwriters, NOT recording artists.
So here's the big uh-oh for the Carlyle Group:
Who is a songwriter on every song in Swift's first six albums?
Yep, that's right: Taylor Swift. She doesn't own her old recordings, but she owns the abstract songs. And she has adopted a policy of saying "no" to all requests for sync licenses.
So - Swift has already inflicted notable economic damage on the owners of her old records.
But she's going even further:
Today, she released a completely new re-recording of her 2008 album "Fearless".
Fearless (Taylor's Version)Taylor Swift · Album · 2021 · 26 songs.
She can do this without Big Machine's consent b/c she owns the rights to the abstract songs. And the new recordings of the old songs are being released by Republic Records under a deal in which she retains ultimate ownership of the new recordings.
(As a sidenote, the new version of the album is excellent. It preserves the spirit of the original, but offers a more mature and refined vocal performance by Swift. And the post-loudness-war mastering of the new version is MUCH improved.)
Now Swift owns a recording of the Fearless album. When licensors come calling, she can offer both a sync license and a master use license for her new recording, cutting Big Machine out of the deal completely.
I can't help but ask myself - would someone *really* pay nine figures for a top tier artist's back catalog without wargaming this stuff out?
But wait -- it might get even worse.
We've talked about how two licenses are required for use of a recording in a film. It's true elsewhere, too.
When a song is made available on iTunes or Spotify, rights must be obtained (and royalties must flow) for both the songwriter and the record owner.
(a song license for film is called a "sync license", but a song license for vinyl, CD, or for spotify is called a "mechanical license", because reasons)
Now that Taylor has released a new version of Fearless, might she start refusing mechanical license rights for the public sale of the old version of the album, effectively removing it from the market completely?
I see no reason she *can't* do this.
If Swift re-records all her old albums and exercises her songwriter rights to effectively remove the old versions from the market, that means someone's 9-figure investment in her back catalog is completely fucked.
And I just wanna know - what the hell happened here?
It looks like the buyers failed to realize that their financial asset existed only at Swift's pleasure, so now she's exploiting their miscalculation, destroying the asset for fun and profit.
I can't help but root for her.
Thank you for reading ☺
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addendum - while Swift can refuse to licence her songs for some uses (such as sync), @sctweak and @rtushnet point out that Swift is required by law to license many other uses.
So Swift cannot completely remove the old recordings from the market.
She cannot force the old recordings out of the market altogether, but she can bar them from film/tv use, and she can release new recordings of those old songs to compete against them for other uses.
The new Fearless is excellent, and I'm looking forward to more re-recording
just waiting to see how she avoids the Elvis / Sam Cooke retirement program...
do you know who / what the Carlyle Group is?Unlike them?
Her parents are rich and protective as f*ck
Which is as it should be
But rare
Her dad owns a piece of that label remember this story is crazy.
She gonna be just fine
Madonna Celine dion Carly Simon etc
That snowflake will be doing a room in Vegas at 75.
That's dope for the artist
Wish De La Soul was able to do that
TruYes. Not sure how they could remake that album without all those samples though.
Taylor Swift Opens the Rock Hall Induction With Ethereal Carole King Cover
Watch her perform “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”www.vulture.com
Another who followed the formula of starting out singing "Disney"-type songs then switched to suggestive lyrics as she got olderA Brief History of Taylor Swift’s Horniest Songs
By Jason P. Frank@jasonspank
Swift in the “Style” music video. Photo: Taylor Swift/YouTube
Taylor Swift is not an artist made for sex playlists. That’s fine! Not everybody needs to be. Heartbroken? “Teardrops on My Guitar” is your girl. Feeling a little flirty? You can’t do better than “I Think He Knows.” And if you’re angry over a breakup, please listen to “Dear John.” But horny? That’s not really her bag. That’s partly because her songwriting, at its best, tends toward an emotional acuity that isn’t quite right for sexiness. There’s also the issue of her voice, which is a light, pleasant, occasionally slight instrument that has trouble conveying the oomph needed for a true sex jam.
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Still, Taylor’s human. Although horny may not be her thing, that doesn’t mean it can’t affect her songwriting in some ways. Yes, horniness is well documented within the Taylor Swift Musical Universe, and while she doesn’t normally address it head on, her horniest songs share some symbols she clearly sees as valuable. In order to understand Swift’s career path, we thought it could be valuable to isolate some of her lustiest moments to see how she’s developed as a songwriter and when she felt comfortable giving in to her inner hormone monster.
“The Way I Loved You” — Fearless
Skipping right past the innocence of her debut, self-titled album, I would argue that the first truly horny Swift song appears on Fearless. “The Way I Loved You” starts by describing some nice guy Swift is dating, which is pretty par for the course, before descending into a description of her sizzling relationship with her previous boyfriend, which was way hotter. “I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain / And it’s 2 a.m., and I’m cursing your name” she sings on the chorus. “It’s a roller-coaster kind of rush / And I never knew I could feel that much / And that’s the way I loved you.” Swift is giving full-on lust in this one. It’s also probably the only Swift song from this era that could be handed over to the Pussycat Dolls without too many lyrical changes. It sets the tone for a lot of her horniest work, which is less about being in the sexual moment than it is about remembering the heat of the moment.
“Red” — Red
Here’s one that takes on a different color (heyo) in the wake of Midnights. In Swift’s pre-Reputation period, the horniness is mostly told through the lens of regret: “The Way I Loved You” and “Red” are prime examples. “Red” may not seem like a super-horny song at first, but it’s a lot lustier than a first glance would indicate. She doesn’t portray the love they had as a “masterpiece,” like on “All Too Well,” but as “red” hot. “But moving on from him is impossible / When I still see it all in my head / In burning red”? Burning red cannot be construed as a lustless descriptor. Again, she manages the feat of bringing horniness into her music without going full lust by looking at the torrid relationship in the past. “Loving you was red” (emphasis mine) allows her to keep a certain tempered image of her sexuality while acknowledging the extent of her previous feelings.
“Style” — 1989
Ooh, baby. This is really the first song Swift put out that is a full-on turn into sex. In “Style,” the icons of attraction change from old Taylor’s fantastical princes into movie stars with leather. When she describes how he’s “taking off his coat,” you can feel the sexual energy. It’s hot! The song is about being entranced by someone not because of who they are but because of how you look together. She sets the stage: “Midnight / You come and pick me up, no headlights.” The secrecy implied is clearly a turn on, and that will recur as she delves further into her sexuality in future eras. While her next album, Reputation, marks her first period with an outward shift toward sex, Swift’s iconography changed with “Style” and 1989, allowing that shift to feel natural. She’s no longer fantasizing about true love; she’s fantasizing about short skirts and glamour.
“Dress” — Reputation
This is the big one. It’s about the tension when you can’t touch someone yet before exploding into the release of a steamy connection. “All of this silence and patience, pining in anticipation,” she says in the pre-chorus before revealing, “Only bought this dress so you could take it off.” That’s still the most sexually explicit Swift lyric we’ve gotten in her career. Yet it’s notable that she uses the same markers of sexuality she established in “Style.” With Swift, it’s all about sexuality told through longing and sensuous friction, and the establishing symbols are clothing and Hollywood glamour. On “Dress,” she introduces another of her favorite sexy symbols: being wine-drunk. “I’m spilling wine in the bathtub, you kiss my face and we’re both drunk.”
“Gorgeous” — Reputation
While “Dress” is Reputation’s crown jewel of horniness, it’s not the only horny song on there. In fact, “Gorgeous,” one of her most underratedly risky songs, is entirely driven by lust. “Gorgeous” is about cheating on your boyfriend (gasp) because the other guy is too hot not too. She’s so in lust that she simply must betray her (older) partner. In this way, “Gorgeous” fits in with the rest of Reputation in that Swift is finally allowing herself to play the villain. Still, though, she tempers it with instrumentation — it’s all major chords and little dings. Her symbols of sexuality are mostly gone, too. There’s no wine, no red, no Hollywood. There’s tension in the lyrics, but the melody mostly cuts through that. She doesn’t fully commit to being the seductive villainess in the way someone like Lorde does on a song like “Magnets.” Shockingly horny in lyrical content, shockingly unhorny musically.
“Cruel Summer” — Lover
Lover is, in terms of horniness, a post-“Dress” album. Swift allows herself to be horny whenever she wants to be — it’s a part of being in love! The peak horniness, though, is on “Cruel Summer.” Other songs, including “False God” and “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” certainly have horny content, but “Summer” really captures the tension and release. She employs some images she’s used previously (the lack of headlights returns) and repositions her man as a “bad, bad boy” in a way that marks this song as distinctly not fantastical. But the horniest moment is, for once, in her vocal performance. The crack in her voice when she sings, “He looks up grinning like a devil,” is just about the biggest sexual release Swift’s ever brought out of herself vocally. I imagine him as the grinning-devil emoji, and that means she’s done her job.
“Maroon” — Midnights
Now skipping right past Swift’s NPR-core era (I’ve had people argue with me that “August” is horny, but sorry, that’s just wistful; things can mention sex without being horny), “Maroon” is one of Swift’s horniest songs. She uses a lot of her previous references, too: The song is set at the end of a wine night, for one. She again uses red as the lens through which she sees her own lust, singing, “The burgundy on my T-shirt / When you splashed your wine into me / And how the blood rushed into my cheeks / So scarlet, it was.” She’s back to contrasting romantic fantasy with the reality of lust, bringing up images of “carnations you had thought were roses, that’s us.” She breaks new horny ground in the chorus: “The mark they saw on my collarbone,” which means that adult Taylor still gets hickeys (love). But perhaps the horniest lyric of all is on the bridge: “I wake with your memory over me / That’s a real fucking legacy to leave.” Swift’s version of horniness is all about that tension: It’s the sensual impact he’s left on her, observed after the fact, played out in red, remembered wine nights.
Ticketmaster’s Dark History
A 40-year saga of kickbacks, threats, political maneuvering, and the humiliation of Pearl Jamprospect.org
Taylor Swift, Ticketmaster, and the Year That Live Music Broke
The nightmarish experience Taylor Swift fans went through earlier this year has sparked debate over monopolies and how tickets are sold. But it’s more than just Swift’s upcoming tour—the entire concert industry is facing unprecedented challenges.www.theringer.com
Might want to delete the Lavender Haze video since her love interest in it is a tranny