Taylor Swift’s Fearless Fight for Ownership (Taylor’s Version)
Story by Cat Cardenas // @c.aaattt // she/her
Illustrations by Caroline Blanton // @caroline_blanton // she/her
On February 12th, Taylor Swift released a re-recorded version of her song, Love Story. The only difference between the recent release and the original 2009 classic is that this time, Swift owns it. The process to get to this point is not a love story but a long one, and it brings a meaningful change to the music industry.
So how did we get here? In 2006, a young Swift signed with Nashville record company Big Machine Label Group (BMLG), owned by record executive and entrepreneur, Scott Borchetta. Swift would continue to write and release her first six albums under that label, which held all the rights to her recordings. This gave BMLG control over the use and reproduction of any content created during her contract.
Enter Scooter Braun. Braun is an esteemed music industry manager affiliated with Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and Kanye West. In 2019, Braun’s company Ithaca Holdings bought BMLG, consequently giving Braun access to Swift’s masters. “Masters” are official original recordings of songs or performances. This subsequently also provided them with the power to control the use and reproductions of her work.
In 2018, Swift signed with Universal Music Group, and although this would give her the right to own her music from here on out, her original six albums still belong to BMLG, hence the re-recordings.
The re-record suggestion came from Kelly Clarkson in a tweet from 2019, and fans loved the idea. Although re-recording would be a colossal undertaking, Swift has been outspoken about doing so while stressing the importance of artists owning their own work.
In an Instagram post from February 11th, Swift writes, “Artists should own their own work for so many reasons, but the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really *knows* that body of work.”
Swift also announced her Fearless album (Taylor’s Version) release in the same Instagram post, including six unreleased songs. These six songs were set to release on the original Fearless album but were cut for various reasons.
In the post, she writes, “These were the ones it killed me to leave behind,” so I think we can expect these six to pack a powerful punch.
Fans have shown an outpouring of excitement and support for Swift. She now joins artists such as The Beatles, Prince, and Kesha in the battle for the rights to own their masters. Still, not many artists of Swift’s caliber have gone through this process.
Since releasing her eighth studio album, Folklore, and its sister album, Evermore, directly after in 2020, Swift has risen again as a musical powerhouse. Swift made history at the 2021 Grammy awards, being the first female artist to win Album of the Year three times for her album Folklore. Frankly, she’s on a roll.
The highly anticipated Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is set to be released on April 9th.