Taylor Swift has been releasing music for 13 years now, which is hard to believe. Even if you’re not the biggest fan of her, I’m sure you’ve had at least one of her songs stuck in your head at some point. One thing that makes her unique as an artist is the fact that she either writes or co-writes every song she’s ever released. The same thing cannot be said for many other artists in this day and age. Because she has been such an integral part of the creation of each of her songs, you would think she would own all her albums herself, but unfortunately this is not the case.
She recently signed to a new record label, Universal Music Group. She previously belonged to the Big Machine Label, which is owned by Scott Borchetta. Swift has apparently been trying to buy her master recordings for years but has been unsuccessful. Recently, Scooter Braun, who Taylor has had problems with in the past, acquired Big Machine Label Group, meaning he now owns all of Taylor’s first six albums. Not only is this upsetting because of the way Scooter has disrespected Taylor in the past, it also represents a larger problem that artists have been dealing with for years.
Record labels have traditionally owned an artist’s masters, meaning they make the decision about where the music is used and collect the fee that comes along with that. This is completely unfair for the artists themselves; if they create an entire album, they should be the ones that decide what it is used for and should be the ones making the royalties that come with it.
This whole situation has opened up a narrative about artists as big as Taylor Swift and smaller artists who are just now getting involved in the music industry. Since this information has come out, Swift has been very vocal about how important it is that artists stand up for themselves and demand the rights to their own music. Hopefully this discussion continues until something drastically changes in the music industry.