You Belong with Me: Retaining Authorship and Ownership of Sound Recordings
Delilah R. Cassidy* Full Article. “For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. . . . This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value[,]’ he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it. . . . And hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation. You deserve to own the art you make.” – Taylor Swift[1] I. Introduction Growing up, a girl named Taylor Swift was considered an outcast.[2] The kids at school thought she was “weird.”[3] Her feelings of loneliness, frustration, and rejection became all-consuming.[4] With…