LOS ANGELES -- Ryan Adams might have asked Taylor Swift's permission to cover her entire album "1989." Seeing as they're pals, that's the likely scenario.
But he didn't have to. And neither would you.
In a nutshell: Under U.S. law, one artist can cover another artist's copyrighted song without obtaining permission, but they do have to notify the copyright holder ahead of time -- called a "compulsory license" -- which kicks in an automatic royalty payment that's based on sales.
There are a number of factors at play here, and some hoops to jump through. You can't change the lyrics, or significantly alter the tunes, for instance.
"Anyone can record and release cover songs, as long as you don't change the lyrics," Janet Billig Rich, a manager who's worked with bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Dinosaur Jr. (all of which have recorded notable covers), tells Mashable. "The artist who releases the music pays a compulsory license for the publishing. It is a set amount. ... so she gets her songwriter royalties."
That fixed amount is a little less than 10 cents per song per sale of physical records, and a tiny fraction of what's already a tiny amount per digital sale or stream.
1989. http://smarturl.it/RA1989 A photo posted by Ryan Adams (@misterryanadams) on Sep 20, 2015 at 8:33pm PDT
Any copyrighted song basically exists in two forms: The song itself, as in the lyrics and sheet music, and the recording of that song (the "master"). In the case of "1989," Swift owns the songs and the masters; while Adams is merely licensing the masters from Swift for a fee, he actually owns his recordings outright.
The copyright law itself stipulates that the covering artist can get permission outright to cover the songs, which means they don't have to pay royalties.
Reps for Swift and Adams declined to speak about whether the two had any such arrangement, but given how miniscule the per-song royalties are (and how little artists are making off streaming these days), neither the cover-er nor the cover-ee will be getting rich off this new version of "1989."
Pamela Chelin contributed reporting to this story.