One thing most people can agree on is that Taylor Swift is a great businesswoman. She is able to affect local economies solely based on where she decides to host her next Eras Tour concert. Arguably one of her best business decisions was to re-record her first six albums in order to own the masters of those re-recorded albums. But how was she able to do so legally?
In order to answer that question, we need to take a look at the ownership of copyrights relating to music. Music is generally subject to two separate copyrights:
A master is specifically the original recording of a song. Therefore, the owner of the master is able to control how the master is used and distributed whether that be for streaming, CDs, downloads, or vinyls. Under section 114(b) of the Copyright Act, ownership of a master does not extend to “the making or duplication of another sound recording that consists entirely of an independent fixation of other sounds, even though such sounds imitate or simulate those in the copyrighted sound recording.” Historically, artists would assign their rights in these masters over to record labels in exchange for promotion of their music.
In contrast, the author or songwriter of the song or musical composition generally retains their copyrights to those songs or musical compositions. These are also known as publishing rights. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the author or songwriter would retain the publishing rights as a record label mainly profits off of a recording itself, not the underlying composition. Therefore, because Taylor Swift wrote each song on her first albums, she (along with any other co-authors) likely retained the publishing rights to those songs, not her record label.
Because the copyright in the master does not extend to an independent fixation of other sounds, Taylor was able to rely on her copyright ownership in the musical compositions themselves to create an entirely new recording and avoid any legal ramifications.
Ultimately, properly leveraging your ownership in copyrights and other intellectual property can be a very lucrative business move. It can also become very complicated very quickly. If you’re in need of any copyright or intellectual property assistance, the Intellectual Property team at BrownWinick is prepared to help make the process as straightforward as possible.