It’s been a couple of weeks since we last blogged about Taylor Swift, so it’s high time we gave you an update on the latest developments in the most high profile music feud of the moment.

You may recall that the popstar fell out big time with her old label Big Machine over its sale by founder Scott Borchetta to long-time Swift enemy Scooter Braun. Swift had wanted to buy the rights to her sound recordings herself, so she was particularly peeved when they fell into Braun’s hands.

Dedicated Swift fans (Swifties, as they’re known) will remember she once sang, “There is nothing I do better than revenge”. Well, they say life imitates art – and now Swift is living out her lyrics.

Furious at Braun’s ownership of her masters, Swift has revealed that she is now blocking sync uses of her old songs. Sync deals – where songs are used in adverts, television programmes, film soundtracks and so on – are big business in the music world, providing a healthy source of income for artists and record labels alike.

While Braun has control over the sound recordings of Swift’s early albums, there are also rights in the songs themselves – that is, the underlying musical work and lyrics. Since Swift wrote or co-wrote her songs, she and her publisher have the power to put a stop to her music being synced commercially.

The singer intends to re-record all her old songs next year with her new label (which has agreed to her ownership of all her new recordings), just as soon as her old deal with Big Machine allows her. But until then she says she’s saying no to every single request she gets to use any of her tracks.

“[T]he reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it,” Swift said in an interview with Billboard this week.

It’s a ballsy move but not one totally unheard of in the music industry. British rock band Squeeze led the charge nearly a decade ago when they rerecorded their best-known songs for an album cunningly entitled ‘Spot the Difference’.

Lead singer Glen Tillbrook described having his sound recordings owned by someone else as like having one of his children “doing a life sentence in prison for a crime I knew they hadn’t committed.”

“So re-recording them is, thanks to a contractual loophole, a little bit like breaking that proverbial child out of prison,” he said in 2010.

There are echoes of Tillbrook’s words in Swift’s language this week. It will feel like “regaining a freedom and taking back what’s mine,” the singer said of rerecording her tracks.

Look beyond the emotive language used by Swift and Tillbrook and you’ll see a heavy dose of business savvy. While their recordings are owned by a record label, the best an artist can hope for from a sync deal is a cut of whatever the record chooses to charge. But as an artist if you rerecord an album yourself, you can charge what you want and pocket the profit without having to share the cash with your label. Indeed back when Squeeze rerecorded their songs, frontman Tillbrook openly declared the band would be willing to undercut their old label when licensing the new recordings.

While we don’t know how Swift will proceed once she rerecords her songs, if she follows Squeeze’s lead it will be good news for any advertising agencies or TV and film producers who want to negotiate a good deal to use her music in their work. In the meantime, it appears they will have til 2020 when the rerecording gates will open.

It’s also a useful reminder for ad agencies about the importance of obtaining clearance of the music publishing first, as if they then fail to clear the original sound recording, there’s nothing stopping them from commissioning a new sound recording (it worked for John Lewis for years). The result: saving a bunch of money, winning brand identification with a new version and even owning and exploiting that recording.