Contract Queen Taylor Swift Regains Control Of Her Master Recordings
She's inspired other musicians to negotiate for ownership of their master recordings in their record contracts, too. The post Contract Queen Taylor Swift Regains Control Of Her Master Recordings appeared first on Above the Law.
Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
I’m trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent, but right now my mind is just a slideshow. As a flashback sequence of all the times I daydreamed about, wished for, and pined away for a chance to get to tell you this news. All the times I was thiiiiiiiiiiiis close, reaching out for it, only for it to fall through. I almost stopped thinking it could happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away. But that’s all in the past now. I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words.
All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me.
— Taylor Swift, in a letter posted to her website, explaining that she now controls her entire music catalog, after she was able to buy back the master recordings of her first six albums. Swift purchased the master recordings from Shamrock Capital, the private equity firm that bought them from Scooter Braun in 2020. According to Billboard, she reportedly paid about $360 million to regain ownership of her masters. “I’m extremely heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry among artists and fans. Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen,” she wrote in the letter. “Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion. You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted and ended us up here.”
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
The post Contract Queen Taylor Swift Regains Control Of Her Master Recordings appeared first on Above the Law.
