The Legality of Livelihood: Protecting Artists in the Music Industry

Aug 06, 2025 | Law Student Blog,

By Anya Liu, Pre-Law Student and English Major at The University of California, Berkeley

“I told myself if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music,” Chappell Roan declared, during her acceptance speech for the title of “Best New Artist” at the 2025 Grammy Awards, “I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and healthcare. Especially to developing artists.” Over resounding applause, Roan continued to detail her personal experience with the music industry’s neglect of personal artist care while attempting to create a name for herself in such a consuming business. “It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanized to not have healthcare,” she divulged, reflecting on how her former record label’s callous treatment of her as a product, rather than as a person, landed her in a position that left her vulnerable both physically and mentally. Now, on the biggest music stage of the world, donning a tall, sparkly hat and with a steely look in her eyes, Chappell Roan challenges the music industry: “Labels: we got you, but do you got us?”

Chappell Roan signed with her first label, Atlantic Records, at the young age of 17— still a minor, and not yet aware of how this contract would come to alter her life. After a series of underperforming EPs and singles, Roan was eventually dropped from the label in 2020, and, in a burgeoning pandemic, quickly came to realize just how underprepared she was as a suddenly unemployed now-adult, and how devalued as a human being she had become under such a neglectful label. “When I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt… and could not afford health insurance,” she stated in her Grammy’s speech.

Signing with a record label for the first time, and so young at that, meant the singer had been severely unaware of her own rights as an artist, completely unprepared to protect herself against the ups and downs of both the professional industry and her personal life. While this vulnerability led Atlantic Records to be able to discard Roan at a moment’s notice for its commercial convenience, it also left the inexperienced young artist with limited tools and options. Chappell Roan is now one of America’s most prominent rising artists, thanks to a meteoric ascent to stardom kicked off by her Grammy-nominated album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, released in 2024 by Amusement Records. However, her convoluted journey in the music industry has brought to light just how commonly this sort of gross artist mistreatment through legal manipulation and lack of legal education may occur– and brings to mind where we have seen this in the past.

In recent years, perhaps the most widely recognized case of a music artist’s legal disputes that we’ve seen in mainstream media has been Taylor Swift’s ownership of her own albums — or lack thereof, after record executive Scooter Braun purchased her first six studio album masters in 2019. Swift was signed to her first record label, Big Machine Records, in 2005 at the mere age of 15, and perhaps unwittingly handed over ownership of those masters. When her contract with Big Machine ended, Swift was able to relatively seamlessly sign with Republic Records in 2018, but she cited one of the reasons she was so excited to start a new chapter in her music career was the knowledge that “I’ll own all of my master recordings that I make from now on.”

The implications behind this declaration soon came into full focus when in 2019, Scooter Braun purchased Big Machine Records, simultaneously acquiring the rights to Swift’s first six masters in the process, and thereby gaining legal rights and revenue pertaining to these six recordings. In retaliation, and in a masterful legal move that sparked a pop culture revelation, Swift began to re-record and release her first six albums as a series of “Taylor’s Version” albums, which she was now able to wield complete control over, already owning the publishing rights to these songs. As fans and casual listeners alike tuned into the star’s reinvigorated discography, not only did the public come to understand more of the legal side of the music industry, but also the harrowing and often unfortunate reality of artists who are looking to make their big break. Although Swift’s dispute eventually ended with her “Taylor’s Versions” becoming massive hits and she later regained control of her original six masters, the core of this conflict remains her initial lack of awareness of how legally convoluted becoming an artist could be, when she signed that first record deal at just 15 years old.

Although Swift and Roan’s cases are relatively recent events, exploitation and legal loopholes in music have existed as long as the industry has been in existence. Some other infamous cases in past decades have been Dr. Dre’s legal battle with Death Row Records over the distribution of his music without fair compensation, former Destiny’s Child members La Tavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett’s abrupt removal from the group by Sony Records without any prior warning, and that of the metal band Metallica, which went up against file-sharing company Napster for copyright infringement pertaining to the music it was essentially downloading from artists and distributing without paying the artists themselves.

Seen through countless cases over the years such as those mentioned above, the unfortunate reality of “making it big” in the music industry often involves having to contend with the convoluted and often intentionally deceptive contractual aspects of being a working artist. Artists are already often treated as products, rather than people — but the legal aspect of this exploitation creates a more technically difficult aspect of the job that without the proper guidance, can make or break an aspiring singer. When it comes to artistry, it’s no longer enough to merely focus on talent or fame: not when the legal aspects of the industry can be what prevents or strips away an artist’s prosperity, as artists must worry about healthcare, proper compensation, censorship, and more under the constraints of a one-sided or even malicious contract. Stars like Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan have rekindled this call-to-action, but the fight for a shift in the legal side of the music industry is one that spans decades and continues its relevancy today. There must be a shift in how large corporations approach contracts with artists, not only as a moral stride, but also to preserve the integrity of the music industry. Additionally, artists must also be made more aware of and receive more exposure to legal counsel and artist’s individual rights in the early stages of their careers when it comes to contracts in the music industry, sought through lawyers or legal organizations, including pro bono legal services providers like St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts.

In an industry that grows more convoluted by the day, having easily accessible legal advice is essential in promoting and fostering an artist’s career, and in the end, benefits the music industry’s success at large — as without the protection of artists, there might as well be no industry to preserve at all.

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