Everyone expected that Taylor Swift would return to social networks to announce the launch of Reputation (Taylor’s version)the version of the album published in 2017 after several years missing from public life. The artist only had to publish that and that of her first study album, which despite taking her name as a title all the Swifties They know how Debut. However, the singer of Pennsylvania has surprised all her fans with even more important news: Taylor again owns her music.
Swift announced last Friday that, after long years of Legal battle with recordingshe has finally bought the rights of their First six albums. Thus, the 35 -year -old man has the Absolute control of all his record work. “I have been breaking in crying of joy at random intervals since I discovered that this is really happening. I can really say these words: All the music I have made … now it belongs to me … to me”, He shared in a letter published on his website and dedicated to his fans.
To understand the relevance of the news we must be aware that the loss of laws of his first six albums was one of the more painful and controversial episodes of his career. Today we recover one chronology that summarizes how the singer stopped being owner of her songs.
2006-2018: Your relationship with Big Machine Records
Taylor Swift started in the music industry with the Big Machine Records record label In 2006, with which he signed his first contract when he was barely 16 years old. Thanks to this agreement, the singer launched her sThe first study albumsthat led her to become one of the most recognized artists, first of contemporary country and then pop.
However, as was common in the industry, the seal retained the Property of the Masters (original recordings) of all his songs published during that time. In practice, this implied that Swift never had legal control over his songsdespite having written them. For years, the singer tried to buy her originals, but the record company never offered fair conditions to do so.
2019 and 2020: Scooter Braun
The great legal battle began in 2019, when the businessman Scooter Braun Big Machine bought after Swift decided get out of the record. Braun became owner of the Masters of the singer, who then declared that he had not been informed of the sale and denounced that it seemed “unfair” and “abusive.” Swift also shared a statement where he assured that the company He did not allow him to use his old musicneither in his performance for the American Music Awards nor in his documentary for Netflix.
In November 2020, Braun He sold the rights of the six Swift to Shamrock Holdings by 300 million dollars. The singer revealed that she had nothing to do with this agreement and that she still did not own the rights of those songs.
2020: Regrabations
Seeing what was happening, Taylor took a Historical decision in the music industry. Decided Record and publish all the songs of those first six albums under the name of Taylor’s version (Taylor’s version). Thus, in 2021 he published Fearless (Taylor’s version) and Grid (Taylor’s version)while in 2023 he took Speak Now (Taylor’s version) and 1989 (Taylor’s version). Only two were missing: Reputation and Taylor Swift.
The re -regions were accompanied by a International Concert Tour. The Eras Tour He got more than 10 million attendees in total and 2.07 billion dollarsbecoming the most successful tour in the history of music. It has precisely been the money raised In this Tour the one that has allowed him Recover rights Of all the songs he lost because of Big Machine Records.
2025: The milestone
According to Billboard, the singer would have bought her Masters For some 360 million dollarsa figure very similar to the one that Shamrock had to pay for them. Far from becoming valuable recordsalbums have lost value Over the years thanks to the Regrabationsbecause fans stopped listening to original songs. This has allowed Swift to buy their masters at a lower price than they would have cost if they still generated the same income as before. Thus, the singer has recovered the control of your songs And it doesn’t have to Keep rewriting the two remaining albums.
