I may not be the biggest Taylor Swift listener, but regardless of your taste, if you have an interest in the music industry and how it works, you simply cannot ignore her. She sets some important examples and educates us about the industry. Her latest offering, Miss Americana, is a Netflix documentary with original footage and clips of old performances, at award shows and concerts. One of the most striking things is how she manages her relationship with the media and her label. She’s had her fair share of issues with both and has become a symbol of how even the biggest artists aren’t safe from exploitation.

One of the most important of these controversies, which happened too recently to be included in the film, was with her former record label about the ownership of her music. It was particularly important because it threatened the release of the movie. The drama was played out in the media but beneath it all, it was tough to watch a creative person see their work be sold to a third party being able to do nothing about it.

Let’s get some context. Every song you hear has two types of copyright. The compositional copyright (with a © symbol), protects the song itself, the lyrics, melodies etc. The writer(s) and composer(s) of the song hold this copyright. The phonographic copyright (with a ℗ symbol), protects the recording of the song. This is what you stream on Spotify. These are usually called master recordings (or masters). This copyright has been a divisive issue for years.

Usually the record label owns masters as they invest the money for studio time, producers, mixers and other costs. This gives the label a bigger share of money earned off a song than the artist, who usually has little power of negotiation, especially in the early days, and even more if the artist doesn’t write the song. The label views this as a reduced risk for their investment, but many argue that artists should own recordings of songs that they wrote.

Swift’s former label, Big Machine, owned the masters of her first 6 albums and was sold to Scooter Braun, who manages Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, for $300 million, with ownership of masters as part of the sale. This means that not only will Scooter Braun earn more from these songs than Taylor Swift, he also controls when and where they can be used, not Swift. So hypothetically, if you want to use Love Story in a video, you’d need permission from Taylor Swift as the writer of the song, and from Scooter Braun for use of the recording. Swift was very publicly upset at the sale, alleging that Braun had bullied her for years. She also prematurely announced the documentary on social media, where she explained that Scooter Braun was refusing to clear the songs for use in the movie.

The documentary shows how she has become more aware of herself within the music world. She has clearly learned a lot from her time. We see how she’s grown up and learned to protect herself and other artists, especially those who are not in her position. Back in 2015, she criticised Apple Music for not paying artists for streams of their songs during a three-month free trial of the service. She explained how it wouldn’t affect her much but could make a massive difference to musicians starting out in their careers, and Apple reversed their decision. More recently, when her contract ended with Big Machine, she signed with Universal Music, and owns the masters of her future recordings. She also ensured that if Universal sell their shares in Spotify, worth nearly $1 billion, that this money would be shared with all of their artists, no strings attached.

It’s always refreshing to see someone famous outside of the usual places, such as on stage or in radio studios. Miss Americana does just this, showing Taylor recordings, and songs like 2019’s ‘ME!’ coming together line by line. Throughout all the hardship, she keeps writing and creating. The film offers some rare glimpses into places like a recording studio or meetings with management for someone so famous, and the rarity of this was the most engaging part.

The biggest thing to take away was that above all else, we see an artist trying to make the most of her platform. The fact that the movie nearly stayed unreleased despite Swift’s superstardom reminds us of the ugly side of the industry, and that there will always be an argument over who legally owns creative work. There is still hope to be found however, as Swift finds her feet and eventually triumphs.

Written by: Ruairí Egan

Edited by: Kinga Piotrowska