[0xfffafaCrash]

Taylor Swift signed a deal with a record label instead of being an independent artist because it seemed (and possibly was) advantageous at the time and now that she is rich and famous and doesn't need the label, she no longer wants to hold up her side of the deal (giving the label certain rights to her earlier music for a certain period of time) and so now she is playing victim to get her fans to pressure the label into giving her more generous rights to the music she signed to them.

Basically when you sign with a record label you give them certain rights with respect to creative control, music ownership and licensing in exchange for them investing in helping you produce and market your music to a wide audience, network in the industry, tour, etc. In short, they help you make it big and take on early costs and risks and in exchange you make them rich if you do become extremely successful.

[deogeo]

It should be noted that music label contracts are notoriously one-sided, and artists often make their labels millions without seeing a dime themselves.

[cortesoft]

Do record labels make crazy profit for the capital costs? Or are they one of those businesses where for every Taylor Swift getting screwed by not getting a fair percentage of the value of her earnings, are there 50 other artists who got a good size advance and never made any money?

I honestly don't know. I just think we have a tendency to only think about the successful artists when we evaluate the fairness of a contract.

[divbzero]

We should thank those who have helped nudge the startup world in a different direction.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Hallelujah. I'm honestly kind of dismayed at how many people are saying "tough shit Taylor Swift", when I hear people bitch on this site all the time about the unfairness of things like non-competes, lopsided preference rights, etc. that end up in the contracts of engineers and the startup founders.

While I don't know if it's the same people bitching about these contract provision who are also saying Taylor Swift should cry me a river, the overall tone strikes me as completely hypocritical. Just search for any post on this site about non-competes and tell me how many upvoted comments you see saying "Tough shit, why did you sign the contract then?"

[mcphage]

> and so now she is playing victim to get her fans to pressure the label into giving her more generous rights to the music she signed to them.

Also known as "trying to renegotiate her contract".

[slouch]

when she was 14