Taylor Swift Brings New Attention to Master-Recording Rights

Taylor Swift and her former label traded barbs in an escalating dispute over the pop star’s right to perform her old hits, reports The Wall Street Journal.

In a lengthy post on her social-media accounts late Thursday, Swift asked her fans to rally for her ability to use music from her catalog in a coming televised awards show and a Netflix documentary. On Friday, Big Machine Label Group, which controls rights to her first six albums, denied her statements, calling them shocking and false.

The tussle has brought new attention to master-recording rights, which have become an increasingly contentious issue in the era of streaming. In most traditional record deals, an artist signs away ownership of master recordings in exchange for an upfront payment and royalties from future sales. Superstars have sometimes been able to use contract re-negotiations to gain ownership of their masters.

The battle for Ms. Swift’s music kicked off earlier this year when Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta, who signed the singer to a record deal when she was 15 years old, sold the independent label to celebrity talent manager Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings LLC in a $300 million deal backed by private-equity giant Carlyle Group. Borchetta stayed on as chief executive of the label and joined the Ithaca board.

Swift, who had previously feuded with Braun and some of his clients, has since said she would rerecord hits from her catalog starting next year, as allowed under the terms of her old contract. Such a move could reduce the value of the older recordings owned by Big Machine if enough fans prefer the new versions.

Borchetta, Swift during a happier time

On Thursday, Swift said Braun and Borchetta told her she could perform her older hits on the shows only if she agreed not to record new versions of her songs.

Swift signed a new record deal with Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group last year after her contract with Big Machine expired. Under the agreement with Universal, Swift owns the masters for all her work going forward.

Big Machine on Friday denied saying Swift couldn’t perform music it owned on the American Music Awards—where she is planning to play a medley of her hits later this month—or interfering with her Netflix documentary. The label said that since the new owners took over it has honored her requests for licensing her catalog.

Before the advent of streaming, record companies held effective monopolies over the distribution of records, tapes and CDs, limiting the value to artists of owning their masters, which would still require the involvement of a record label. The explosion of online options has made it more attractive to artists to own their material, given the wide array of avenues to release their music and make money from it.