Back in 2019, Taylor Swift shocked her fans and the music industry by striking back at the two men that enabled the transaction of buying and selling her first six albums. In a tweet, she revealed that Scott Broschetta, her former label head and Scooter Braun, buyer of her masters, had prohibited her from performing her old songs on the American Music Awards. This prompted thousands of tweets and countless articles documenting the selling of masters of one of the most famous artists in the world.
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Master recordings are the actual studio recordings of the song and typically, artists have to sign over those recordings when signing a contract with a record label. This secures financial support from the label as the label will spend money on the artist for promotion, studio time, tours, etc… Over time, the label acquires more money from the masters by licensing music to TV, commercials or any other work without artists’ consent or knowledge. In a back and forth, she-said, he-said exchange between Scott Broschetta and Taylor Swift, it was revealed that Swift had received an opportunity to get back her masters on the condition that she would record six more albums to gain back the rights for the six albums in the hands of the label. This seemed like a perpetual cycle for Swift, so she left Big Machine Records knowing she was leaving behind her music.
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Taylor Swift is just one of the countless artists who don’t own their work but her battle to regain agency over them is one rarely seen before. After the initial fury of not only her but also her fans, she announced she would re-record all her music. Few artists have done so with success, so for the past year the media and the music industry have been waiting to see what she will do next.
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In late 2020, it was announced Scooter Braun had sold her master recordings for more than $300 million to Shamrock Capital, a private equity firm. The firm bought her catalog with the hopes that investment will appreciate enough over time to re-sell it in the future for a higher amount than they bought it for. Swift commented on the purchase and revealed under new terms, Scooter would still profit off of her music even under the ownership of the new firm.
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Taylor’s relationship with Scooter has been marred by scandals from two of his artists, namely Justin Bieber and Kanye West, who have both had problems with Taylor. All of this culminated in Taylor planning a release of re-recordings of all of her past six albums which, depending on how successful they are, will depreciate the investment Shamrock Holdings made by buying her music from Scooter. The re-selling of her music rights sparked another conversation about private equity moving into the music industry to buy not only master recordings but songwriting rights.
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In a seemingly contradictory move, multiple artists like Stevie Nicks, Mark Ronson and Timbaland have sold their catalogs to private companies. In an era of streaming, new government and a pandemic, selling their catalogs will give artists multi-million dollar deals. During the pandemic, live concerts, a previously booming avenue for artists to make money, were delayed or cancelled. Some artists strapped for cash are willing to sell their work to get money back.
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For example, David Crosby, who worked with Bob Dylan for years, sold his catalog in order to pay his mortgage. The public is seeing two sides of the same coin of artist ownership: Artists like Taylor Swift who don’t own their master recordings fighting back and artists like Stevie Nicks who see more profit from selling their catalogs. The key point is having the option in the first place to own their work. As Taylor starts the promotion for her first re-recording release, “Fearless,” the music industry will see how this battle plays out for years to come.