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Its #IPThursday again folks. This week we look at the story’s of Taylor Swift’s masters and just how cruel the music business can be....Even for the most successful artists.
The star of our story today is probably one of the most famous country/pop singers ever, Taylor Swift. Born in West Reading Pennsylvania in 1989, Taylor took up music pretty early in her childhood.
From around the age of 9, she became interested in music and in time, she started attending and later performing at local festivals.
In 2004, at the age of just 15, she relocated to Tennessee to pursue a career in country music. You know that genre of rural white American music our African music somehow love? That’s where things really took off for our girl.
It wasn’t easy going initially, she submitted tapes to different record labels including to country music legend Dolly Parton but she struggled to get a deal in the very early stages. Her fans probably know more about this history.
You know Dolly Parton, she’s that lady who was begging Jolene not to take her man and then went on to write “I will always love you” apparently on the same day, sis went through a lot.
Anyways, I digress again, Taylor didn’t have to wait long for a record deal. At the age of just 14, she was signed by Sony owned RCA records.
Her stint at RCA didn’t last long though and soon after that she joined independent label Big Machine Records. Probably the best and worst thing to ever happen to her, but more on this in a bit.
At the time, Big Machine, owned by a man called Scott Borchetta was just starting out and Taylor was one of their first signings.
Since then, she’s become their cash cow and one of the best selling artists of the last decade and more than just a country singer. She’s released different genres of music such as pop, rock and electro-pop as well as won numerous awards.
Which most people think she deserved, except the one time Kanye West didn’t, but this moment deserves a thread on its own. For now I’ll just leave a video
Anyways, Taylor released 6 albums with Big Machine and part of the deal she signed back when she was a teenager was that Big Machine would own the masters to her recordings. I’ve explained what Master recordings are before but I’ll do it again.
A master recording is the first studio recording of a song from which all other copies are made. Its like the moment when the combos come together and boom, you have your finished song.
A lot of artists actually don’t own their Masters. The reason for this is because when they sign, they have no bargaining power with labels. So labels often insert clauses to say that they will own the Masters. “He who owns the Master, controls what happens with the song.”
They control the money from streaming, sampling, movies, album art and TV ads. For context, Master catalogues make so much money that they are even traded on wall street sometimes. They are a business on their own.
Taylor Swift’s masters are valued at approximately $140 million and they are owned by Big Machine. In 2018, Taylor’s deal with Big Machine ended and she joined Universal Music. Universal agreed to let her own her future master recordings, something Big Machne wouldn’t let her do.
However, when she left Big Machine Taylor was under the impression that she would be allowed to buyher Masters from Big Machine, however, things took a turn for the worst shortly after. Taylor still had hope that she could buy the catalogue for her first 6 albums from them....
But In 2019 (I think, will confirm), a man named Scooter Braun purchased Big Machine as well as Taylor’s Masters. She calls this the worst possible scenario for her.
You see, Scooter has represented people that Taylor doesn’t really get along with, including our good friend Kanye who embarrassed her at the awards I referred to earlier....They have “Bad Blood”....see what I did there? 
Taylor also came up with a solution. What if she re-recorded her songs, created new Master recordings and re-released them, she could then control them and get her fans to listen to the new releases instead.
This would be much cheaper than buying them, so she’d definitely get along wth Ndebele men. Most record labels don’t allow that and the reason is quite simple, once an artist re-records the songs it will lower the value of the original recordings.
Anyways, straight after the purchase, Taylor took to social media and voiced her frustration. She said that Scooter & co. wouldn’t allow her to perform some of her songs.
Her fans reacted angrily and decided to pile pressure on Scooter in the hope that they would give her the rights to her songs, (he claims he’s even received death threats as a result).
Just a year later, Scooter decided to sell the catalogue to someone else just a year later, to an investment firm named Shamrock. Again Taylor didn’t know about it and she then had to do her own digging to find out who owns her rights now.
This one hasn’t gone to court or anything but it has interesting legal questions. 1. Should artists own their own Masters automatically after recording?
2. If not, then should they have a say in how and to who they are sold to and 3. Should an artist be allowed to re-record songs and create new Masters.
The current answer to all those questions is “Not really”. 1) Record labels need some form of incentive to invest in an artist and their music so they’ll always write this into the contract. That’s why many artists start their own labels after some success. Which is always an L.
2) Should Taylor have had a say on who the Masters are sold to? Yes, 100% and I think she should have had an option to buy them before they were sold to anyone else.
3) Should they be allowed to re-record their songs, No and I personally think there’s a lot wrong with that from a Copyright point of view. But I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I do hope she gets control of the catalogue eventually. She’s not the only one in a similar sort of situation. Lil Wayne signed a bad deal early on in his career and he’s been fighting with Birdman over his rights for years (I’ll do one on this in future).
Closer to home, Zola’s been in a very public war with Lance Stehr from Ghetto Ruff over his rmusic rights. He alleges Lance has made millions off music which he doesn’t control. (I’ll definitely do this once I have all the deets). So owning your Masters is a pretty big deal.
Who remembers when Prince Kaybee and Maphorisa were bragging over who owns their Masters? They are quite a big deal.
Big Lesson: its very common in the music industry, whether you’re a country singer, a rapper or a kwaito artist, “sikhala sibaningi”. Best way is to push for a deal which allows you to control your Masters.
