While Swift was not the first to undertake this technique of appropriation of his work, he led it to another level of visibility and public debate in which more and more artists demand the property of their recordings. EFE/Octavio Guzmán
Taylor Swift, 35, He announced this Friday that he has regained control of his musical catalog, a new milestone in his career that consolidates a growing movement between artists to claim the property of his works.
“I can finally say these words: all the music I have made … Now it belongs to me … to me,” the American singer announced in an emotional letter in which he also reported that the musical videos, the unpublished songs, the art and photographs of his albums and “the memories, the magic and the madness” were of her.
The news comes almost six years after a constant struggle for the recovery of the rights of his music, after Scooter Braun, then stars manager such as Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, acquired in 2019 the record label that possessed the masters of his first six albums.
A year later, Braun sold for more than 300 million dollars the masters of Taylor Swift to Shamrock Holdings, the same company that managed to reach an agreement with the singer, who stressed that they managed each interaction with them “In a honest, fair and respectful way.”
In 2019, the interpreter publicly denounced that he had been denied the possibility of buying his work and in response he undertook a re -record project entitled “Taylor’s Version” in which he redirected the music, videos and photographs of his albums.
In April 2021 Swift launched the refrabation of the album “Fearless (Taylor’s version)”, the second of his career, and since then his most faithful followers began to consciously reproduce these new versions instead of the originals.
In social networks, fans promoted the “Taylor’s version” with the message: “support Taylor, not Scooter.”
Until now, Swift has published the re -regions of four albums of his discography and in the letter broadcast this Friday he has already finished working in a new version of his debut album, “Taylor Swift” (2006), and added that if his followers were excited about the idea the launch would soon arrive.
He also referred to “reputation” (2017) as the only album that, according to her, thought that “could not be improved by removing it”, but said there were a couple of unpublished songs that I planned to launch.
An inspiration and a precedent in the industry
Before Swift, the British rock band Def Leppard carried out a process of re -registering their successes in 2012 after a dispute with Universal Music about digital royalties.
Also, in 2018 Pop singer Jojo launched new recordings of her first two works, “Jojo” and “High Road”, after a legal battle with her old Blackground Records label.
Although Swift was not the first to undertake this technique of appropriation of his work, he led it to another level of visibility and public debate in which more and more artists demand the property of their recordings and the creative control over their music.
Recently the American rocker Bryan Adams, author of issues such as “(Everything I do) I do it for you” or “Please Forgive” cited Swift as inspiration when he began to re -regret some of his most iconic themes, after his previous record, Universal Music, refused to return the rights of his original recordings and began his way as an independent artist.
In addition, John Fogerty, vocalist and leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival considered one of the biggest rock stars in history, announced that in August he will release an album with new recordings of legendary songs of the band after denouncing that for years he was not the owner of the songs he composed.
