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

I am a law student. Follow me for puns, kitties, and occasional threads about law. Here's another one: https://twitter.com/ThatsMauvelous/status/1321651966758604802?s=19

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. https://twitter.com/rtushnet/status/1380650932686499847

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-recordings