New York (AFP)

The tone goes up between Taylor Swift and her old label, which she accuses of preventing her from singing her own songs with, in the center, the question of the rights of her recordings.

This is a new stage in the litigation that pits the pop princess against music mogul Scooter Braun.

In June, the businessman's company acquired Taylor Swift's Big Machine, which owns the singer's recordings for his first six albums.

Arrived at the end of the contract in November 2018, the 29-year-old artist joined Universal, with which she released her seventh opus, "Lover", and publicly explained that Big Machine did not allow her to recover the rights of her recordings .

On Thursday, she accused, in a blog post, Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine, of having warned her team that she was not even allowed to sing her old songs on television.

"It would be re-recording (s) music before (she) has the right to do it, next year," said the two leaders, according to Taylor Swift.

In August, the one who started her career in the country announced to want to re-record her tracks to regain control of her works, a project she confirmed on Thursday.

According to Taylor Swift, these threats may prevent him from singing a compilation of his greatest hits at the American Music Awards (AMA) on November 24.

They also deprive her, according to her, of using pieces and old videos in a documentary about her life produced by Netflix.

- All for the "masters" -

On Friday, the Big Machine label counterattacked, denouncing "false information".

"We never said that Taylor could not sing at the AMA or blocked his documentary Netflix," the record company assured in a message posted on his site. "Besides, we have no right to prevent him from singing live anywhere."

The label goes further and claims that the singer owes him, contractually, "millions of dollars".

Still according to the group, discussions have been held in recent months between the two parties and "we were optimistic about a possible resolution, until yesterday", Thursday.

The leaders blame him for having "appealed to his fans in a calculated way, which has important consequences for the safety of our employees and their families."

They nevertheless made a new call for dialogue, accusing him of having refused a direct exchange so far.

The rights issue is not new in the record industry.

Prince is probably the artist who has most embodied this fight of the artists to have the ownership of their "masters", or mother-bands, the original recordings.

After several years of fighting against his label Warner Bros, which he called the "slave", he was finally released from his contract in 1996.

"If you do not control your masters, they control you," he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1996.

In many contracts, the producer is designated as the owner of the masters, a counterpart to his financial risk taking.

As in the case of Taylor Swift, who made her first commitment at age 15 when she was unknown, the balance of power at the time of signing the contract is often favorable to the record company.

Some artists have nevertheless gained control of their recordings, including Rihanna, U2 or Jay-Z, often by redeeming them at once-famous gold prices.

Some young artists have also arrived more recently, including the rapper XXXTentacion, murdered in 2018.

"Signing and keeping the greatest artists in the world, or even a newcomer that labels are snapping up, has become much more expensive," says Larry Miller, director of the music economics program at New York University. (NYU).

"Some houses are sometimes ready to do things contrary to the way their business model works."

The labels still retain the overall hand, thanks to their ability to "make" a star.

If producing music is now accessible to all, Larry Miller admits, "there is a big difference between being a talent to discover and having an army of people working to make you the greatest artist."

© 2019 AFP