The Night Things Changed: Taylor Wins the Fight For Her Masters

By Kayla Harper

 

For years to come, May 30th will be known as Swiftie Independence Day: the day Taylor Swift announced the long overdue and well-deserved ownership of her first six albums, which finally belong to her and only her –no strings attached.

In 2019, shortly before the release of her seventh studio album, Lover –the first album released under Republic Records and which she owned– news spread that Swift’s first six albums, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and reputation had been sold by her previous label, Big Machine Records’s executive Scott Borchetta to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings for approximately $300 million.

The main reason Swift left Big Machine Records in 2018 was because under Republic Records she would be the sole owner to all of the music she created.  This was something she had been trying to negotiate with Borchetta since originally signing at fifteen-years-old in 2005.  Instead Swift shares, “I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in. I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future” (Swift, June 30, 2019).

When Swift walked away she “made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell [her masters]. Never in [her] worst nightmares did [she] imagine the buyer would be Scooter” (Swift, June 30, 2019).  Braun and his clients had previously sabotaged Swift’s career many times, the worst of all being the 2016 incident “when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips [her] body naked” (Swift, June 30, 2019).  Now the career he tried to sabotage was in his possession and Swift wasn’t made aware of this until it was publicly revealed to the world.

When Swift’s catalogue was sold for a second time without her knowledge to Shamrock Capital in 2020, they reached out to Swift in hopes of creating a partnership, however, upon learning Braun would still be involved, Swift declined.  Before this sale her team had attempted to negotiate with Braun, but could not do so unless Swift signed an NDA stating she “would never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive” (Swift, 2020) essentially silencing her.  Swift refused to not speak up about this issue and the importance of artists owning her work, this alone, in addition to her lawyers concerns about the legitimacy of the agreement, meant she would never be able to purchase her masters back from Braun.

Although Swift did not have the rights to her original master recordings at this time, she did have the rights to the lyrics and instrumental composition meaning she could re-record these songs and re-release them as her own.  An idea inspired by Kelly Clarkson who publicly tweeted, “[Taylor] just a thought, you should go in and re-record all the songs you don’t own the masters on exactly how you did them but put brand new art and some kind of incentive so fans will no longer buy the old versions. I’d buy all the new versions just to prove a point” (Clarkson, July 13, 2019).  Swift would go on to send Clarkson flowers after the release of every re-recorded album as a thank you.

Swift began her re-recording era in April of 2021 with the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version).  Besides re-creating the original album + platinum tracks as they were, she also included what are called ‘From The Vault’ tracks, these are songs which got cut from the original album either by herself or at the discretion of her former label.  It was like Swift finally got to share these albums in their full capacity as everything she wanted them to be without a label telling her what she can and can’t do or say.

By the time Red (Taylor’s Version) came around in November of the same year, Swift was overwhelmed with the fans’ response to the first re-record.  Initially, she didn’t realize how well fans, colleagues and the general public would respond to her re-recording project, but as a result of their positive response, she gave even more with the second re-recording.  Red (Taylor’s Version) had its own photoshoot and included ten ‘From The Vault’ tracks –among those were her own versions of two songs she wrote for 2012’s Red album that had previously been sold to other artists, “Better Man” and “Babe”.  It also had two music videos, one for “I Bet You Think About Me” directed by friend(?) and actress Blake Lively as well as a short film for “All Too Well” the ten minute version directed by Swift herself.  The release of the full-length version of the fan-favourite “All Too Well” was perhaps the most exciting part of Red (Taylor’s Version) considering fans have been asking Swift to release the full version for nearly ten years at that point in time.

The next two re-recorded albums wouldn’t come out until 2023 –Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) in July and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in October –nine years after its original release date on October 27.  Both of which had their own photoshoots and a music video for “I Can See You (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”.

In between re-recording her first six albums, Swift recorded three brand new albums, Midnights, The Tortured Poets Department and The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, and embarked on what is now the biggest tour in history, The Eras Tour –a tour celebrating all of her musical eras up to this point, simply because she hadn’t toured for four albums due to the COVID-19 pandemic and wanted them all to have a chance to shine on the stage.  Swift announced both Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) on her record-breaking Eras Tour.

When Swift’s tour concluded in December of 2024, fans assumed she would wrap up the re-recording project the following year in 2025, releasing the last two: her self-titled debut album, Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) and her 2017 comeback album, reputation (Taylor’s Version).  However, Swifties around the world, including myself, were surprised and thrilled to learn Swift has purchased the masters to her original six albums and now owns them outright, “all of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me” Swift shares in a letter on her website, “…and all my music videos. All the concert films. The album art and photography. The unreleased songs. The memories. The magic. The madness. Every single era. My entire life’s work. To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it” (Swift, May 30, 2025).

Essentially this means all proceeds and benefits from streaming Swift’s entire catalogue, buying her records, watching her music videos and concert films, go to her and her collaborators, not greedy businessmen who had no role in the creation of it.  Swift goes on to thank her fans, “the passionate support you showed [the Taylor’s Versions] albums and the success story you turned The Eras Tour into is why I was able to buy back my music…all I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright” (Swift, May 30, 2025).

What does this mean for the future of Swift’s career?  Well, for the first time in years, there is no underlying project hanging over her head, no upcoming tour dates, simply a clean blank slate to write and create whatever comes next.  As for the other two re-recorded albums, Swift discloses in her letter, “I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of [reputation]…it’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon…so I kept putting it off” (Swift, May 30, 2025).  Anyone who knows how persistent the Swiftie community has been about reputation (Taylor’s Version) for the last six years knows how hilarious this outcome is.  As for myself, I’m relieved.  I’ve also been wondering how Swift could ever outdo the masterpiece that is reputation, from the music to the artwork. However, Swift did say “there will be a time…for the unreleased vault tracks” (Swift, May 30, 2025).

However, I have been anticipating Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) as it is one of my favourites and I think it would be really interesting to see how the album sounds now considering Swift was 14-16 years old when she first recorded it. There’s also so many amazing unreleased songs from this era that I’d love to hear official versions of. Luckily, Swift states in her letter, “I’ve completely re-recorded my entire debut album and I really love how it sounds now. Those 2 albums will still have their moment to reemerge when the time is right”  (Swift, May 30, 2025).

Many people feel like the entire Taylor’s Version project was a waste, some feel it was simply money-hungry, but what these people don’t realize is the positive implications something of this scale will have on the industry for years to come, especially for new artists signing their first deals.

First of all, Swift’s desire to own her own work goes far beyond who’s profiting off of it–it’s her right to hold legal ownership to the artwork she creates –songs she wrote on her bedroom floor when she was 12-years-old when music was simply an outlet and a dream career, to “Love Story” the hit she wrote in 20 minutes when she was 17 after storming to her room because her parents didn’t approve of a boy she liked.  All the way to when she was 26-years-old writing reputation after spending a year in isolation when the industry turned on her and she wasn’t sure if she’d have a career to come back to.  Each of these albums were created by an artist who uses music as an emotional outlet to express a certain era of her life, that art was stolen from her, never offered to her, and now she finally gets to call it hers.

Additionally, each re-recorded album allows us to see these albums through a new lens. I remember how cool it was hearing Taylor’s voice singing Fearless songs, and how improved they sounded.  Swift also used this as an opportunity to show us the songs that didn’t make the initial cut and how she wanted the albums to be composed and sound with no outside interference from her label.

Secondly, the success of Swift’s re-recording project gave hope to many artists in the same position, such as Swift’s close friends, Paramore, as well as new artists who didn’t know any better or have as powerful a voice to speak up for themselves. In Swift’s initial letter addressing this matter in 2019, she stated, “hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation” (Swift, June 30, 2019) in her most recent letter she writes, “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” (Swift, May 30, 2025).  The impact of Swift’s fight for her masters is truly inspiring and enlightening to aspiring artists negotiating their first deals who did not know the importance and extent of the partnerships they form.  This will change the industry for the better, forever, and applies to all forms of art whether you’re writing a song, script or book, involved in visual art, screenplay, etc.  As Swift once said, “You deserve to own the art you make” (Swift, June 30, 2019).

 

A Letter From The Author/Editor: 

As always, thank you for reading.  Writing this article felt really full circle. Among the first two articles I had published when I started writing for my high school paper, was an editorial on the gender pay gap and women’s rights and a feature story on Swift’s fight for her masters when it first happened…now I’m writing an article about the whole ordeal after hearing the news that she’s finally purchased her first 6 masters…I couldn’t be happier for my childhood favourite.  Again, thank you for reading…maybe I’ll have to re-create my Taylor Album Ranking article this year?!

– Kayla <3