Taylor Swift: How the Star Has Had to Fight to Control Her Music

By Laurine Payet, Music Journalist

Pop star Taylor Swift, whose fanbase is majorly queer, has made it clear about her place as an ally of the LGBTQ+ community. The recent release of the rerecorded version of Taylor Swift’s viral hit ‘Wildest Dreams’ reopened the conversation regarding the reason for this to happen. While it is now widely known to the public that the international pop star had the rights to her songs stolen, the story and details are a lot more complicated than it seems. It is not rare for artists as big as Swift to lose the recorded version of their songs, but why is it so? As much as the singer is not the only victim of the record industry, we will see what makes this specific story an example of integrated misogyny in the music workplace.

After moving to Nashville to pursue a career in country music, Taylor Swift was only 16 when she released her debut album. Over the following eleven years, she recorded six albums while being signed to Big Machine. All six of her albums marked Swift’s creative path throughout her diverse influences as well as being massive hits. Taylor had and still has no right over the masters – or recorded files – of any of these albums. While it sounds surreal, it is common.

AWAL, also known as “Artists Without a Label”, explained the reason for the rights to be given away so often. When artists sign a record deal with a label, no matter their influence in the industry, they receive a usually important amount of money. This advance is used for all the sides of a release, from the recording to the marketing aspect of the album. What most new artists do not realise, is that this money is not a gift and record labels will expect the advance to be recouped. All record deals are different, but they all put artists in a situation where they will not see most of the money coming to them for a long time. This leads many young artists, especially young women, to sign long term agreements in which all their master royalties are owned by their record label in exchange for the financial ability to produce and distribute a high-quality album. Most major labels only offer multiple albums deals, which tie the artist to work with them exclusively for a few years to decades. This happens commonly to women and marginalised people, because of the power imbalance and limited access to it. This was exactly the case for Taylor Swift and her first six albums signed and owned by Big Machine.

The record label to which her masters belonged was previously owned by former DreamWorks Records executive Scott Borchetta. The company was sold to Ithaca Holdings in 2018, taking with them the rights to Taylor’s six albums. This is when the dispute started. The media company Ithaca Holdings is owned by Scooter Braun, who she publicly outed for being a bully an “incessant, manipulative bully” to her in the past. Scooter Braun also used to be Kanye West’s manager and was working with him when the fight over Kanye’s ‘Famous’ went down. He’d sang the line “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that b***h famous.” and featured a nude picture of Swift in the video that she has called “revenge porn”.

However, owning the rights to a recording also means owning the right to make it, distribute it, and sell it. This means Braun owns more than just the money from the songs. He is now in charge of all decisions about these songs. Taylor explained her “musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it”. She had not even been made aware of the sale to Braun before it went public. A backstabbing move from Scott Borchetta. This is when she started actively trying to buy her songs back. She explains in a tweet that Braun’s team had tried to make her sign an NDA agreement stipulating she could not talk publicly about Braun in a negative way. No quote was ever made, it was just a way to silence her without selling her work. This was not a money matter anymore but a personal fight: Braun never wanted Swift to get her recordings back.

At the end of 2020, Braun sold her masters to Shamrock Holdings for a deal that is said to have been worth over $300 million. The private equity firm founded by Roy Disney notified Swift that Braun’s condition for the deal to happen was that Shamrock Holdings made no contact with her and her team before signing the contract. This marks the end of the fight led against Scooter Braun by Taylor Swift.

"Hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation."

Taylor Swift is now re-recording all 6 albums – and has already released “Fearless”. Next up, "Red" is set to be released Friday 12th November. This will lead to reducing the value of her original masters. She will be able to choose the way her songs are going to be used. Her fans are also excited to listen to the songs that made her famous in a way that is going to benefit the star. She said it was her “only way of regaining the sense of pride” for her old music.

“Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” is available here.