Annexing a year is a rare Swift misstep

There's a couple of reasons why Taylor Swift trying to own 1989 is disappointing.

First of all: you can't trademark a number. You can't trademark a year. To be fair, Swift wasn't quite trying to claim ownership of that, just 1989 scribbled down, but it's the same thing. Even at his worst, Billy Corgan never tried to command how people might use 1979, even in his favourite font.

Secondly, and what's more strange: Taylor Swift (or Corporate Taylor Swift Inc.) knew 1989 was going to be a big deal; didn't it occur to them that the best time to try and trademark something might be before signing the exclusive special edition deals with Target and launching the product?

In other odd Taylor Swift news, somehow I Knew You Were Trouble appeared on Spotify but credited to Lostprophets. Yeah. Lostprophets. In terms of 'making a prank as uncomfortable as possible' that's up there

Spotify's response was "someone gave us it like that" and a swift (ho-ho) pulling of the track.