Cheyenne Suarez

'My greatest dream' - Taylor Swift buys back rights to old music

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/17486542828781748654282172.jpeg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="Taylor Swift. Photo from Swift&#x27;s Instagram account"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Taylor Swift.<em> Photo from Swift&#x27;s Instagram account </em></span></span></span></div><p>NEW YORK — Pop sensation Taylor Swift, who was locked in a feud with record executives since 2019 over ownership of her music, has bought back the rights to her entire back catalog, she said Friday.</p><p>&quot;All of the music I&#x27;ve ever made ... now belongs ... to me,&quot; she wrote on her website, after years of disputes over her first six albums, a number of which she rerecorded to create copies she owns herself.</p><p>&quot;To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,&quot; she wrote in the letter to her devoted followers.</p><p>&quot;To my fans, you know how important this has been to me -- so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released four of my albums, calling them Taylor&#x27;s Version.&quot;</p><p>Those records included the award-winning &quot;Reputation&quot; and &quot;Taylor Swift.&quot;</p><p>Swift bought back her masters from Shamrock Capital, an LA investment firm, for an undisclosed amount.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/music/2025/2/19/taylor-swift-named-recording-artist-of-the-year-for-5th-time-0950">Taylor Swift named recording artist of the year for 5th time<br/></a></div><p>The re-recording power move came in the wake of public sparring with industry mogul Scooter Braun, her one-time manager whose company had purchased her previous label and gained a majority stake in her early work.</p><p>He later sold Swift&#x27;s master rights to the private equity company.</p><div><strong>&#x27;This fight&#x27;</strong></div><p>The situation left Swift publicly incensed: &quot;I just feel that artists should own their work,&quot; she said in 2019.</p><p>&quot;She&#x27;s a vocal advocate for artists&#x27; rights,&quot; Ralph Jaccodine, a professor at the Berklee College of Music, told AFP previously.  &quot;She&#x27;s built her own brand.&quot;</p><p>Before her public efforts to regain control of her work, Prince, George Michael, Jay-Z and Kanye West all also fought for control of their masters — one-of-a-kind source material that dictate how songs are reproduced and sold — but none had gone so far as to re-record them completely.</p><p>The queen of pop, whose recent nearly two-year-long, $2 billion Eras tour shattered records, said that she was &quot;heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry.&quot;</p><p>Swift&#x27;s lucrative tour which wrapped last year was a showbusiness sensation, and will have helped offset the costs of buying back her catalog.</p><p>The 149 shows across the world typically clocked in at more than three hours long each.</p><p>Tour tickets sold for sometimes exorbitant prices and drew in millions of fans, along with many more who didn&#x27;t get in and were willing to simply sing along from the parking lot.</p><p>&quot;Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I&#x27;m reminded of how important it was for all this to happen,&quot; Swift said in her letter.</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><div><strong><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jXYkVsnpxqI?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span></strong><br/></div>

<p>"All of the music I've ever made ... now belongs ... to me," Swift wrote on her website, after years of disputes over her first six albums, a number of which she rerecorded to create copies she owns herself.</p>

"All of the music I've ever made ... now belongs ... to me," Swift wrote on her website, after years of disputes over her first six albums, a number of which she rerecorded to create copies she owns herself.