Well-Strung - Blank Space

Proposed Copyright Law Change Could End Streaming & Downloads Of Cover Versions

Via Billboard Magazine:

On Thursday morning, the U.S. Copyright Office released a 245-page review of the music licensing regime with some bold proposals. It's not beach reading season, though, so it's understandable why the tome hasn't triggered a mass frenzy just yet. But wait! The government has just suggested a change that would make it possible for Taylor Swift not only to forbid her own works from appearing on Spotify, but stop those covering her there too. Specifically, the Copyright Office recommends that songwriters or their publishers still won't be able to stop cover songs in certain formats — presumably physical compact discs, broadcast radio and live concerts — but could stop covers from being posted on interactive (otherwise known as on-demand) sites or download sites. (The proposal might also give a non-interactive site like Pandora one advantage over Spotify.)

In 2011 famous control freak Prince declared that any covering of his songs without permission should be illegal. Prince: "That doesn't exist in any other art form, be it books, movies. There's only one version of Law & Order. There's several versions of Kiss and Purple Rain." Millions of YouTube's music clips are cover versions and its unclear if the original artist would have to take action to have them removed.

iTunes Issues 2014 Year-End Charts

Today iTunes issued its year-end bestsellers chart. Above is this year's top ten for digital singles. The soundtrack to Disney's Frozen tops the list for downloaded albums, followed closely by Taylor Swift's 1989 and Coldplay's Ghost Stories. The top three downloaded movies: Frozen, The Lego Movie, and The Wolf Of Wall Street. The top three downloaded television shows: Game Of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and Downton Abbey. Billboard Magazine's definitive 2014 recap of physical and digital music sales will come later this month.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson - Shake It Off

Modern Family star Jesse Tyler Ferguson covered Shake It Off at the Trevor Project's benefit concert in Los Angeles on Saturday, much to the delight of Taylor Swift.

Thanksgiving Shake-And-Bake

Today we get yet another Taylor Swift parody, this time with a Thanksgiving theme. Featuring Mean Girls star Daniel Franzese with a cameo from Russell Tovey of HBO's Looking.

The Boys Of Boston - Shake It Off

(Tipped by JMG reader Tristam)

RELATED: Swift set another chart record this week.

Taylor Swift this week becomes the first female solo artist to replace herself at #1 on the Hot 100. Her new hit, “Blank Space,” leaps from #13 to #1, displacing “Shake It Off,” which held the top spot for four non-consecutive weeks. Swift is the first act to replace itself at #1 since the Black Eyed Peas, which did the trick in July 2009 with “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling.” Swift is the 11th artist to replace itself at #1 since 1955 (which predates the inception of the Hot 100 in 1958). She’s the seventh solo artist to achieve the feat, but just the second solo artist to do it with two records that were entirely solo (no collaborations). The first to do this entirely on his own was Elvis Presley, who scored in October 1956 with the double-listed “Hound Dog”/”Don’t Be Cruel” and “Love Me Tender.”

Donna Summer almost did it 1979 when the #1 runs of Hot Stuff and Bad Girls were separated by Anita Ward's Ring My Bell.

Bryan Hawn - Out Of The Woods

Fitness model Bryan Hawn lip-syncs to a Taylor Swift track as he builds a marriage equality map and shows off his ridiculous rear end. This is probably office-safe.

(Via JMG reader Homo Erectus)

Taylor Swift - Blank Space

Last week Swift pulled her entire catalog off of Spotify at the same time that she became the only artist to score a platinum album in all of 2014, a feat that many industry observers noted as yet more grim evidence on the state of the music business. Anyway, here's today's follow-up to Shake It Off, the smash first single from her new album.

Taylor Swift Yanks Catalog From Spotify

Taylor Swift, the nation's top selling artist, yesterday pulled all of her music off Spotify in one of the biggest moves in the long-simmering war between musicians and streaming music services.

The decision means that a large number of fans will have only one option to hear Swift's new album, "1989," and that's to buy it, which hundreds of thousands of people have already done. Music's most influential artist is simultaneously making a political statement and a savvy business move. More than 700,000 people bought "1989" in the first two days it went on sale last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That already exceeds the year's biggest one-week seller, Coldplay's "Ghost Stories," which sold 383,000 in May. Music streaming services and file sharing have sharply cut into music sales for artists over the past couple of years. Many artists complain that the fees Spotify pays to record labels and music publishers, with a portion eventually funneled to musicians, is too small.

Spotify can't shake it off: "We were both young when we first saw you, but now there's more than 40 million of us who want you to stay, stay, stay. It's a love story, baby. Just say yes."

Todrick Hall - Alice In WeHoLand

Taylor Swift - Shake It Off

A Gay Take On Taylor Swift

Queerty tips us to this achingly cute performance by a University of Rochester a capella group, the Yellow Jackets, in which they do a gay take on Taylor Swift's video for You Belong To Me. The clip within the clip was shown to the audience while the group performed. Here's the original Taylor Swift video in case you haven't seen it.

2010 Grammy Winners

A complete list of winners in all categories can be found on the official Grammys site. Beyonce led the pack with six wins, followed by Taylor Swift with four. Lady Gaga only scored in the less prestigious dance categories.

Album of the Year
Taylor Swift, Fearless
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Beyonce, Halo
Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
Jason Mraz, Make It Mine
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
Jay Z, Rihanna, Kanye West, Run This Town
Best Rock Album
Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown
Record of the Year
Kings of Leon, Use Somebody
Best New Artist
Zac Brown Band
Song Of The Year
Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), Beyonce
Best Pop Vocal Album
The E.N.D., The Black Eyed Peas
Best Rock Song
Use Somebody, Kings of Leon
Best Dance Recording
Poker Face, Lady Gaga
Best Electronic Dance album
The Fame, Lady Gaga
Best Remixed Recording
When Love Takes Over, DJ David Guetta

NOTE: Buju Banton DID NOT WIN for Best Reggae Album. That Grammy went to Stephen Marley for Mind Control.

Douchenozzle Gay Fish Doesn't Care About Country Singers

The nation's most famous gay fish bum-rushed the stage at MTV's VMA Awards to ruin the moment for 19 year-old country star Taylor Swift. Within moments, half of the music world had taken to Twitter and their blogs to issue angry denouncements.