Re-recordings are often produced decades after the original recordings were released, usually under contract terms more favorable to the artists.
[1] When re-recordings are issued under newer contracts, artists can collect far higher royalties for use in films, commercials, and movie trailers.
The internet has also given artists more power in negotiating fairer recording contracts, or even self-publishing music directly onto streaming platforms.
[8] This means that another individual or machine can reproduce a piece of music without causing copyright infringement, as long as the original recording is not used.
[8] This is particularly relevant to re-recording of music as it allows artists to record the same song later as a newer version or a special edition and own that independently.
With recordings having been made and issued in single-channel mono up to that point, some artists re-recorded some of their most famous songs so they would be available for purchase in the new stereo format.
"[11] In re-recording their music, The Everly Brothers set a precedent that is still widely used in recording contracts today.
[12] Swift was advised by her lawyers that she could start the process of re-recording her old albums and release them as newer versions, after her contract with Big Machine expired in 2018.
Following the American businessman Scooter Braun's purchase of Big Machine (and the ownership of the masters along with it) after Swift moved to Republic Records, she announced that she would re-record her first six studio albums.
Her dispute with Big Machine and Braun was highly publicized and triggered an industry discourse on ethics, musicians' rights, and intellectual property.
[14] The band feels as though they have not been treated fairly by their record label, so in a move to reassert their power they have decided to re-record their popular hits and release them digitally so as to provide themselves with a fair share of the profits compared to what their record label was willing to offer them in negotiations.
[36] Recordings from the past can also be improved thanks to re-recording of music, allowing sound specialists the chance to reduce background noise or noise from older style microphones to enable clearer understanding of speech and tone, providing greater understanding and meaning to the recordings.
[36] The process of re-recording is therefore attributed to enabling the historic preservation of the past in sound form for future generations to study.
The Library of Congress in the United States is an example of an institution that is working to ensure that sound recordings, such as those with historical significance such as Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech are preserved for generations to listen to in the future.
[37] However, a problem that historians at the library cite is that often these recordings can be very old, and it is time critical that they be preserved before they are lost due to heat exposure or breakage from not being handled properly.
The library staff are having to make sure that the rest are placed in environments that are able to conserve and slow down the deterioration of the original audio sources until they can digitise them, however many have been lost such as historical radio recordings that were dubbed an important piece of society's "sociocultural heritage".