“I don’t know what else to do,” declared Taylor Swift in a lengthy Twitter post last week. “I just want to be able to perform my own music.” The star was distressed and upset. She wanted to play a medley of her hits at Sunday’s American Music Awards but her old record label had forbidden it.

Or so she claimed. The label hit back with a statement of its own, saying it hadn’t tried to stop the show and that Swift’s narrative “does not exist”. Insults were traded, politicians weighed in and, eventually, a settlement was reached.

Big Machine Records issued a statement on Monday night saying it had agreed “to grant all licences of their artists’ performances” for “the upcoming American Music Awards”. It didn’t mention Swift by name but the implication was clear: Her performance could go ahead. But the second half of the statement was the really interesting part. “It should be noted,” said the label, “that recording artists do not need label approval for live performances on television or any other live media.(BBC)…[+]