Dierks Bentley’s record label apparently doesn’t want you to see him singing with Taylor Swift

Dierks Bentley joins Taylor Swift on stage in Kansas City (9/21/15) – photo via Taylor Swift Twitter

On Monday, Dierks Bentley was Taylor Swift’s surprise guest during the first night of her two-day tour stop in Kansas City. The two performed Dierks’ hit song Every Mile a Memory. I’ve heard it was a pretty cool performance. Unfortunately, Dierks’ record label apparently doesn’t want you to see it.

This story originally started out like everyone else’s. I was just going to tell you about Dierks joining Taylor on stage and post a video that iHeartRadio had taken of the pair’s performance.

Then a weird thing happened. When I went over to get the video code, this is what I encountered.

It’s funny because we’re used Taylor Swift and her minions being notoriously protective of her business and her image. The internet is full of stories of Taylor taking on companies, podcasts,  Etsy crafters,  guitar teachers, etc., etc., etc. for using her lyrics, name, image, and anything else she deems off-limits, but who knew that Dierks’ record label was also kind of protective?

It’s not unusual for companies, especially record labels, to send copyright notices to YouTube and the process is automated for the most part. The weird thing is, however, if you search YouTube for Dierks Bentley, there are more videos then you can count of him singing. Heck, if you search for “Dierks Bentley Every Mile a Memory” a video pops up of him singing that very song in Kansas City on 9/12/15 during his Sounds of Summer tour. So why in the world did UMG send a copyright notice on this particular video (and probably others since there don’t seem to be any full-length videos of the pair singing together)?

Weird.