Taylor Swift masters dispute

In response, Swift stated she had tried to purchase the masters but Big Machine had offered unfavorable conditions, and she knew the label would sell them to someone else but did not expect Braun as the buyer, alleging him to be an "incessant, manipulative bully".

Swift expressed her disapproval again, rejected Shamrock's offer for an equity partnership, and released the re-recorded albums via Republic, to critical and commercial success, breaking multiple sales, streaming, and chart records.

[25][23] The purchase encompassed all aspects of Big Machine's business, including its client roster, distribution deals, publishing rights, and music masters,[23] and was financed by American private equity companies such as the Carlyle Group, 23 Capital, and Soros Fund Management, all of which owned a stake in Ithaca.

[5] She announced in August 2019, on a special episode of CBS News Sunday Morning with American journalist Tracy Smith,[43] that she would "re-record" and release the six albums to own the complete rights herself,[44][45][46] as soon as her Big Machine contract allowed her to.

[18] In October 2020, Braun sold the masters, associated videos and artworks to Shamrock Holdings,[47] an American private equity firm owned by the Disney estate,[note 3] for a reported $405 million.

Additionally, she stated that Braun's lawyer, Marty Singer, threatened Business Insider several times over the investigation, claiming Silman is biased and has "deep ties to the Taylor Swift camp".

The deal, valued at $1 billion, brought the SB Projects and Big Machine rosters, including Bieber, Grande, Lovato, J Balvin, Thomas Rhett, Florida Georgia Line, and Lady A, together with K-pop acts like BTS, Tomorrow X Together, and Seventeen.

[88] In a September 2022 interview with NPR's Jay Williams, Braun stated he regrets the way the Big Machine acquisition was handled, admitted he came from a "place of arrogance" when he assumed that he and Swift "could work things out", and that he learned "an important lesson".

Musicians who openly supported her include Dionne Warwick,[93] Anne Murray,[94] Cher, Selena Gomez, Halsey, Iggy Azalea,[95] Sara Bareilles, Lily Allen, Tinashe, Ella Eyre, Hayley Kiyoko, Camila Cabello, Jordan Pruitt,[96] Brendon Urie,[97] Kelsea Ballerini, JoJo,[98] Azealia Banks,[99] The Regrettes, Echosmith,[100] Antonoff, Haim, Alessia Cara, Allie X, Hrvy, Gretchen Peters, Iza, Katy Perry,[95] and Anita Baker,[101] who agreed with Swift that artists should rightfully own their music.

[104][105] Beside musicians, celebrities like Cara Delevingne, Heidi Montag, Sara Sampaio,[95] Martha Hunt,[98] Gigi Hadid, Antoni Porowski, Bobby Berk, Ruby Rose, Jameela Jamil, Joseph Kahn,[96] Mike Birbiglia,[100] and Mamrie Hart also supported Swift via social media posts.

On October 6, 2021, ahead of the election, former governor and Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe launched a series of negative advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, and Google Search, tying Youngkin to the purchase.

[109] Jared Polis, the 43rd Governor of Colorado, mentioned Swift's re-recording venture as a highlight of 2021 in his annual gubernatorial address on January 14, 2022, and sang the chorus of "22 (Taylor's Version)" in reference to the new year of 2022.

[115] Dominic Rushe of The Guardian said Swift's situation hinted at a change in the digital music era, where artists are more informed of their ownership and would not rely on record labels for marketing as heavily as in the past.

[119] Elle's Fawzia Khan and The New Yorker's Carrie Battan hailed the "(Taylor's Version)" tag attached to the re-recorded music as genius re-branding of Swift's back catalog.

[121] The New Zealand Herald reporter Lydia Burgham dubbed the move "ultimate middle finger to the bureaucracy of the music industry", while revealing how "even someone of Swift's star power cannot hold on to the rights to her recorded work.

"[123] Unlike most artists when faced with this kind of injustice, Swift actually had the ability to stand up for herself, and in doing so, invoke meaningful dialogue and inspire change within the notoriously slow-moving music industry ... Re-recording a back catalogue of six full albums and respective secret bonus tracks, then developing a hugely successful campaign to drive loyal fans towards the new versions of their beloved albums—and away from the original master recordings, prompting a dip in streams that will be mimicked in the rights holders' income statement—is something only very, very few artists can do.

[126] In a similar vein, Erin M. Jacobson, a music attorney specializing in artist-label negotiations, said on CBC News that "the structure of a label owning the master has been in place for such a long time that a lot of people are just used to that".

Meredith Rose, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, wrote in her American Bar Association post that "if Swift—who is, without exaggeration, one of the biggest powerhouse pop stars of an entire generation—can't get her own masters back, who could?

[30] According to professor R. Polk Wagner of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Swift associating her lyrics with a range of goods and services through trademark applications represents her understanding that "she is bigger than the music".

In her acceptance speech, Swift addressed Braun for the first time publicly, criticizing his "toxic male privilege" and the "unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying [artists'] music as if it's real estate—as if it's an app or a shoe line."

[155][156] The re-recorded tracks have been featured in various visual media: "Love Story (Taylor's Version)" appeared in an advertisement produced by Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds for the dating app Match.com.

[22] "Wildest Dreams (Taylor's Version)" was extensively used in the trailers for the animated adventure film Spirit Untamed (2021)[157] and in an episode of Netflix fantasy series Fate: The Winx Saga (2022).

"[177] Indonesian singer-songwriter Niki stated Swift inspired her to re-record and "reimagine" her original songs that she had deleted from YouTube after signing to her record label, incorporating them into her second studio album, Nicole (2022).

"[180] American rapper Offset, a former member of hip hop group Migos, claimed to be "rap's Taylor Swift" following a dispute with Quality Control Music, his former record label, over his solo career.

[181] Irish actress Saoirse Ronan and American filmmaker Greta Gerwig said Swift's fight for ownership resonated with them while making the 2019 film adaptation of Little Women, whose author Louisa May Alcott also held onto her copyright.

In reclaiming her masters, and drawing attention to the saga surrounding it, she has made a dramatic statement about the importance of artists owning their work and refusing to let others capitalise on their creativity.

[187] Weverse said "the recording industry had been watching [Swift's] rerecording project closely to see where it might go and has recently begun to react" and pointed out that musicians have started to demand the rights to their masters "more and more often" following the controversy.

[188] On November 17, 2021, iHeartRadio announced that its radio stations will only play "Taylor's Version" songs henceforth, with plans to replace the rest of the older recordings with the re-recorded tracks as they are officially released.

[192] In January 2022, a spring semester course focusing on Swift's career and its cultural impact was launched at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, with "copyright and ownership" as one of the topics covered by the syllabus.

[200][201][202] Vulture critic Jason P. Frank opined that American singer Demi Lovato's decision to release her 2023 remix album, Revamped, was inspired by Swift's re-recordings.