Taylor Swift in bar fight? Gossip Cop investigates
2:43 pm, November 25th, 2009
(GettyImages.com)
“Swift Sues Sports Bar After Sting Operation,” read the headline of recent item about Taylor Swift on TMZ.
According to the post, “Taylor Swift wants justice — after a sting operation in Idaho revealed that a little sports bar was totally cheating her out of … a few dollars a month.”
TMZ reported that record label “BMI deployed an ‘agent’ to go on a recon mission at The Sports Cellar bar sometime last year, and the agent noticed the bar was playing music — including Taylor’s stuff — that they hadn’t paid for the right to play.” The site went on to say, “Swift and co. are suing for unspecified damages — but compared to the millions she’s raking in right now, this thing in Idaho is totally small potatoes.”
Idaho… potatoes… Oh, we get it. That’s cute, but the story is a gross misrepresentation.
Neither Swift nor any of her reps initiated the lawsuit nor are they involved in it in any away.
In a statement from BMI, given to Gossip Cop, the label explained, “BMI filed a routine lawsuit against a bar for not licensing music over a span of several years. (We file dozens of such lawsuits every year.) On the two nights we surveyed music in the bar, there were ten songs we selected to include in the copyright infringement suit… One was a Taylor Swift song.”
(BMI has 400,000 copyright owners, including Swift, and when an artist joins the label, he or she signs a contract for these types of lawsuits, which the label may pursue independently.)
BMI added in its statement that “Other than by the sheer chance that Taylor owned one of the songs heard on the night our researcher visited the establishment, she personally has no direct participation in this copyright infringement suit.”
Guess “BMI Sues Sports Bar After Sting Operation” sounds less sexy (though more accurate ) than “Swift Sues Sports Bar After Sting Operation.”
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