Taylor Swift countersues Evermore theme park over use of her music

Taylor Swift’s legal dispute with a Utah theme park that shares a name with her album Evermore has escalated, with the singer’s rights management company countersuing the park for unauthorised use of Swift’s music.

In February, representatives for Evermore filed a lawsuit against Swift, arguing that her December 2020 album Evermore infringed their copyright. They said the name had confused visitors and harmed the park’s visibility in search engines. Swift’s representatives called the suit “baseless … frivolous and irresponsible”.

Now, her company TAS Rights Management has countersued, alleging that the park played Swift songs on its grounds “without authorisation or license agreement”. They allege that the park “blatantly ignored the numerous notices from [US performance rights organisation] BMI and opted instead to continue to benefit from the free and unauthorised public performance”

of three Swift songs.

Evermore has reportedly applied for a retroactive licence for the music performances, but only after hearing of Swift’s lawsuit. The park has not made a statement regarding the countersuit.

Swift is currently preparing an ambitious reissue programme. She has rerecorded her first six albums after the label that originally released them, Big Machine, sold the master recordings against her wishes. The first reissue, Fearless, is to be released on 9 April, including six previously unreleased tracks.