Taylor Swift was actually free to sing her songs

Taylor Swift's old publisher Big Machine Records issued a statement saying it had agreed "to grant all licences of their artists' performances" for "the upcoming American Music Awards", in reaction to Swift's claim that her old record label had forbidden it. However, in the second half of their statement, Big Machine said "that recording artists do not need label approval for live performances on television or any other live media. Record label approval is only needed for contracted artists' audio and visual recordings and in determining how those works are distributed". Big Machine noted that the label does not “have the right to keep her from performing live anywhere", as Billboard reports. In other words, BBC emphasizes, Swift never needed permission to play her hits. What she couldn't do was put them online afterwards.