Taylor Swift's Masters Dispute - A Lesson in Masters Ownership and the Current State of the Music Industry
- Lauren DiGiovanni
- 12 minutes ago
- 4 min read
If you missed the news, Taylor Swift recently bought back the masters to her first six albums. Now, she maintains full ownership of her entire catalog spanning her 20 years in the music industry. In a letter posted to her website, Swift revealed that she was gratefully given the opportunity to buy her music “outright with no strings attached, no partnerships, with full autonomy” from Shamrock Capital, among other things (I’m looking at you “I haven’t even rerecorded a quarter of Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” ). In case you forgot, let’s run through the dispute from the very beginning, and I’ll talk about some of my opinions regarding the whole situation at the end.
When Swift signed her record deal with Nashville based record label in 2005, she signed over her masters rights for her first six albums. She eventually wanted out of the deal, and Swift signed a new deal with Republic Records in 2018. In this new contract with Republic Records, she would retain the masters rights to all of her work. In 2019, Big Machine Records founder Scott Borchetta sold the masters rights to Swift’s first six albums to Scooter Braun, a known nemesis of Swift, for roughly $300 million. Swift, in an interview with CBS This Morning, stated “I couldn’t believe who [Borchetta] sold it to. Because we’ve had endless conversations about Scooter Braun, and he has 300 million reasons to conveniently forget those conversations.”This outrage inspired her 2020 song, “my tears ricochet”, off of her “folklore” album. The ensuing feud between Swift and Braun will soon become well documented in the following years
With the release of her 2019 album, Lover, Swift announced that she had plans to rerecord her first six albums. A year later in 2020, it was announced that Braun sold her masters rights to Shamrock Holdings for an alleged $360 million. In a post on X, Swift revealed that Braun’s team required her to sign an NDA before being able to bid on her work, which Swift’s attorneys noted was highly unusual. Braun’s team was unwilling to even give her an estimated price, which made it clear to Swift that her masters would not be for sale to her.
In April 2021, Swift released Fearless (Taylor’s Version). In addition to the rerecorded versions of the 2008 songs, she also included unreleased “vault tracks”, featuring artists such as Keith Urban and Maren Morris. She followed this same model with Red (Taylor’s Version), a 30-track record featuring the long-awaited “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”. The “10 Minute Version” was the longest song to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, previously held by Don McLean’s 1971 hit, “American Pie”. After releasing Midnights in 2022 and embarking on “The Eras Tour” in 2023, Swift released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in July and October 2023, respectively. Now, Swift owns the rights to every song she’s ever recorded.
How was Swift allowed to rerecord her old music, even though she does not “own” them? Despite not having the rights to the sound recordings of her first six albums, she did retain the composition rights. This allowed her to remake the originals because she wasn’t reissuing the original recordings. Does this mean any artist seeking ownership of their masters, and their contract allowing them to do so, should rerecord their songs? Probably not. In my opinion, there are very few artists who could pull this move off. Swift’s star power and sheer pull allowed her to do this, and most artists would not be able to pull listeners from the originals to the new versions like she could. Another leverage point Swift used were the “vault tracks”, aka songs that didn't make the final cut of the original album. Some of these were leaked in the past, while some were complete surprises for fans. This, evidently, drew listeners to these new versions. By drawing listeners away from the old versions to the rerecorded ones, it devalued her original albums.
This proves what we’ve observed many times in the industry - if you have money, you’ll go far. Without Swift’s rather massive bank account and her business prowess (she is the first billionaire artist that made their fortune from music alone), this deal most likely would not have gone through. The amount of leverage she has, and the pushback from millions of fans, played a role in the business negotiations. Even if the deal went through, I don’t believe the buying price would have been as low as it was. Rumors are that Swift bought back her masters from Shamrock Holdings for $360 million, the same price that Shamrock bought them for in 2020. This purchase was prior to the “Taylor’s Version” project coming to fruition, so Shamrock a) probably wasn’t sure that Swift would go through with the project and b) wasn’t sure that the project would even be successful, so it seemed like a worthwhile investment. Shamrock certainly made money off of the catalog, but most likely not to the degree they were expecting and hoping for.
The dispute has also raised questions about the ethics of the music industry, specifically regarding record labels. In response to the massive success of the “Taylor’s Version” project, many labels have been incorporating restrictions on rerecording in the clauses of their contracts. These restrictions can last anywhere from ten to thirty years. This may seem grim, but there are some positives. The success of the “Taylor’s Version” project has allowed musicians to make strides in contract negotiations, artist ownership, and to be more engaged with the fans. All in all, Swift’s masters dispute will certainly be written in the history books, and it will be exciting to see the long last effects it has on the music industry.
Written By Lauren DiGiovanni
*copyright not intended. Fair use act, section 107.
