NME | Music, Film, TV, Gaming & Pop Culture News
The legal saga between Taylor Swift and Utah’s Evermore Park has developed further, with Swift countersuing the theme park for playing her music without a license.
This follows the park suing Swift for trademark infringement over her most recent album, also titled ‘Evermore’.
Now, Swift’s trademark and music rights team, TAS Rights Management, has filed a countersuit, accusing the park of playing her music on its grounds “without authorization or license agreement”, Rolling Stone reports.
The court documents filed feature two letters sent by performance rights organisation BMI to the theme park in August and September of 2019. The countersuit claims that BMI reached out to Evermore Park several times to no avail. The suit also claims that Evermore Park only responded to BMI once they learned of the impending countersuit by Swift’s team.
“In the past, letters have been mailed to your attention along with licenses reflecting your music usage fee of $1,728.67 (USD) for the period of May, 2019 to December, 2019 only,” one of the letters reportedly reads.
“This fee does not include all other unlicensed periods in which you were using music.”
The lawsuit specifically references the park’s use of Swift’s songs ‘Love Story’, ‘You Belong With Me’, and ‘Bad Blood’.”
TAS is asking for Evermore Park to pay damages for each individual infringement on Swift’s work and performance.
Representatives for Swift had previously called the original lawsuit “baseless” and “irresponsible”, saying that it is “inconceivable that there is any likelihood of confusion between (Evermore Park) and related products and Ms Swift’s music and related products.”
In a five-star review of ‘Evermore’, NME‘s Hannah Mylrea wrote, “The new album reaps the rewards the stylistic leap of faith that ‘Folklore’ represented, pushing the boundaries of that sonic palette further still.”
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