Taylor Swift can perform her old songs at the AMAs after dispute with former label

Taylor Swift fans can calm down, as her American Music Awards performance is reportedly good to go.

Swift is set to perform her old songs at the show this Sunday after saying her former label was threatening to prevent her from doing so. An agreement between Big Machine Label Group, the label that owns the masters of her older songs, and Dick Clark Productions, which is producing the awards show, has been reached that will allow the performance, Variety reports.

Last week, Swift said she was planning to perform a medley of her songs after accepting the award for artist of the decade, but Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine, and Scooter Braun, whose company purchased the label, told her, "I'm not allowed to perform my old songs on television because they claim that would be re-recording my music before I'm allowed to next year." She also said Big Machine was preventing her from using her older songs in an upcoming Netflix documentary.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Swift previously voiced her disapproval of her earlier songs' masters being controlled by Braun, who she has accused of "manipulative bullying," and announced plans to re-record the songs when she is legally allowed to in 2020. Big Machine on Friday said that "at no point did we say Taylor could not perform on the AMAs."

A statement from Big Machine on Monday says that "recording artists do not need label approval for live performances on television" but only for "audio and visual recordings and in determining how those works are distributed." Variety notes, though, that "an argument could be made that a west coast broadcast of a live show is, technically, a taped version of a song."

Now, though, Swift's AMAs performance can reportedly proceed as planned and feature the old songs, although the Netflix documentary issue, evidently, remains unresolved.

Update: Dick Clark Productions is now denying having authorized the statement from Big Machine announcing this agreement, adding, "Any final agreement on this matter needs to be made directly with Taylor Swift's management team."