Sean Doolittle ’24, Boston College Law School Magazine Online; Swift’s Latest Hit: Copyright Law
"Greenstein described the impact that Swift’s gambit has had on the music industry: “Labels invest in artists, they hire producers, they pay for recording time, and they want to recover that investment. Recording agreements often prohibited musical artists from going out and re-recording a song for a period of five to seven years from the original release date of the record, or two years from the expiration of the contract. Now, thanks to Taylor Swift, they’re pushing that up to ten, fifteen, maybe even thirty years,” he warned. Once bitten, twice shy, as they say.
Swift has, in other words, slammed the door in the face of new artists hoping to come up through the recording industry, making it that much harder for future musicians to negotiate for ownership of their music. Now, up-and-coming musicians will be largely stripped of the ability to re-record their music and acquire the phonogram copyrights in a song for decades—well past their prime popularity, in all likelihood—instead of the traditional five- to seven-year period. Popular established musicians, on the other hand, stand to benefit, reinforcing the exclusive nature of the music industry."
