Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Monday, the ninth of June. I'm Billy fitz Simon's I'm Sam Kazlowski. About two weeks ago, or just under that, Taylor Swift announced that she brought the masters to her first six albums, meaning she now effectively owns all of her albums and has complete control over
her creative work. It was a surprising development that brought an end to one of the biggest and long standing stories in pop culture over the past five years. So what does an artist owning their masters actually mean? And how will this impact the music industry as a whole.
Billy, I really love this story because it brings in one of your favorite pop stars. It's probably your favorite pop stars.
Okay. I was going to say, I'm so glad that I'm doing this podcast with you, because when we first started working together, for the first two years, we drove to work together every single day, and I would always want to put on Taylor Swift. And not only would I want to sing with you, Taylor Swift, but I wanted to explain to you the stories behind every single song, and a lot of the songs are about this master's dispute.
So I want every listener to imagine this. You're sitting in the car with Billy in the passenger seat. She pauses the song to explain the lyric and then keeps playing the song.
I need to pause ten seconds later, and so the fact that we are now in a podcast studio and you actually have to sit there for the next fifteen minutes or so. As I explained, I'm.
So excited, thrilled. But it's a really amazing story. It brings in a lot of interesting dynamics that are more related to the business side of music, to the way that artists are managed and they manage their own catalog. Where do you want to start with this story?
I think we should start with what we're actually talking about. So we're not talking about all of her albums. We're just talking about the first six. So that starts with her first album that she released in two thousand and six, which was called Taylor Swift, and then it goes all the way through to her Reputation album released in twenty seventeen. Now, when I think of you, I think about you being a reputation.
Boy, Yeah, I'm lately in the reputation that you are. Yeah, that's you. Okay, So we're talking about more than a decade of music exactly.
So this all started when Swift was fifteen, so in two thousand and five, and that is when she signed with the record label Big Machine Records. Now, they were a completely new record company and it was founded by a man named Scott Buscheedda and he had a particular focus on country music, which, as we know, is where
Taylor Swift got her start. Sure, and so at that time, when she was fifteen, right in the middle of her teenage years, Swift signed over the ownership of her first six studio albums Masters.
And I feel like masters is the first piece of music jargon that we need to get out around. So exactly do you mean when you say masters?
I actually didn't know this until I did all of the research. I just presumed that it was the intellectual property of her album, which it kind of is, but it's a very specific form of that. So a master is actually just the original recording of a song, so a file exactly, So every other version of that song that we hear on streaming platforms or on YouTube or anything like that is actually just a copy of that song that has kind of been licensed out.
That makes sense, yeah, kind of, So it's kind of like an artwork almost like if you think about the painting on the wall, that's the master exactly, and you can own a print of that, but it's not the original painting.
That is the perfect analogy.
Well huh ha ha.
And so if you don't own your master, it means that you don't have total creative control over where and how that music is used. You definitely have some control and some say in how it is used and everything, especially with Taylor Swift, who is also the songwriter of all of her songs, but she just doesn't have total creative control because that belongs to the person who owns the masters, which in this case was her record label.
So would you say she was looking at these masters for a long time and going you belong with me? Yes? Thank you? Okay, great point one to Sam, So, Billy, is it normal for artists to own these master copies?
So from my understanding, and certainly what Taylor Swift has said is the case, but is what she's trying to change for many music artists is that it is actually
not the standard that artists own their own masters. So historically, how it usually has worked is that record labels will hold the ownership of masters and also all related materials, so things like music videos, album covers, all of the associated materials that comes with an album, they will own that and in return, the label provides recording resources, marketing spend, financial backing. Kind of, I guess they take on all
of the distribution. Yeah, and I think, you know, yeah, to remember that at fifteen, Taylor Swift didn't have the career that she has now obviously, and so I guess you could argue that it was kind of a risk for them to bring on this new singer.
Of course, there's all these videos of her, you know, performing with a guitar in the shopping mall. Yeah, and you know, was really just a fifteen year old who was not guaranteed to have this sort of stuf.
No, definitely not. And Scott Bouschetta saw her, you know, singing in a bar and was the one who reached out to her and said, I want to sign you to my new record label. And so what I just explained about, you know, how it traditionally works that is how it happened with Taylor Swift.
So the issue that we're talking about today, and the reason we're talking about this on the podcast, is the ownership of these master files exactly.
And she has said that she has made it very clear throughout her relationship with Big Machine Records that eventually she said she wanted to own these masters. And what happened was that after those first six albums, so after she completed the contractual agreement that she would give over the masters of her first six albums, Big Machine Records then said, here is a new deal that would allow her to earn the rights to one album at a time for every new album that she produced.
Wow, okay, so keep making music for Big Machine Records and in exchange will almost give you one from the catalog for you to have this eventual goal exactly.
She rejected that deal and instead, in twenty eighteen, she moved to a new record label, Universal Music Group, who allowed her to own the masters of all of her future albums. So she basically left her old albums behind, but with her new albums was able to now own the masters of those.
We're going to continue this chat about Taylor Swift, write after a quick message from our sponsor. And so what happened to those old masters? Did they kind of stay in the custody of Big Machine Records?
Yes they did, And shortly after Taylor Swift left, Scott Boschedder again, the founder of Big Machine Records, sold the company which owned the first six albums of Taylor Swift to a man named Scooter Braun.
Who we know, We know Scooter Braun, We.
Do know if the name rings a bell, but you don't exactly know who we're talking about. Scooter Braun was the manager of Justin Bieber. He is credited with discovering Justin Bieber, and he's also the manager of many other well known artists. He was the manager of Ariana Grande, Demi Levado. They're a whole suite of very famous artists
who Scooter Braun was the manager of. I almost think now though he's just as well known for this dispute with Taylor Swift as he is for being the manager is well known artists.
Well, I feel like it's been going on for a couple of years now. So he came over. Where are we in the timeline? So he came over and became the owner of Big Machine Records in about twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. Yes, so he's been This has been a plot line for a couple of years now. Yeah.
Yeah.
And why was it so controversial four Big Machine Records to be sold to Scooter Braun?
So I had forgot this, But Scooter Braun was actually Kanye West manager right after he published that song famous. Do you remember that? It was very big at the time. It was big because it was so controversial because it had the lyrics I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why I made that bitch famous? And in the music video it depicted a naked version.
Of Taylor and so some context there. So that refers to the two thousand and nine incident at the Video Music Awards the VMAs, where Taylor Swift had won an award and Kanye West got up on stage and essentially said, no, this award should belong to Beyonce. And that moment on stage was a really polarizing moment of pop culture. That's the moment that West is referring to exactly.
And West was basically taking credit for Taylor Swift being famous, and so Taylor had some pretty complicated feelings.
About that, and so Scooter Braun at the time then managed Taylor Swift and Kanye West, who had just written this controversial lyric.
Well, Scooter Braun wasn't the manager of Taylor Swift because she had left, but he was the manager of Kanye West. But Taylor Swift had no professional relationship with Scooter Braun outside of him just owning her previous hour list.
Sorry, does that make sense?
Yep?
Okay, So he basically had some crossover between Kanye West and Taylor Swift at the same time, exactly right now.
In twenty nineteen, when the news broke that Big Machine Records had sold to Scooter Braun, Swift released a statement to Tumbla Tumbla. Now, the statement was quite lengthy. I'm obviously not going to read it out all, but I do want to read out a little bit. She said, all I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I've received at his hands for years. They're obviously referring
to Scooter Braun. Then she goes on or when his client Kanye West organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. Now Scooter has stripped me of my life's work that I wasn't given an opportunity to buy. This is my worst case scenario. So don't think you can overstate how much Taylor Swift did not want to have any involvement with Scooter Braun. Another part of this is that Taylor Swift also claimed that she didn't even know that Scooter Braun was going to be buying her
albums until the rest of the world did. Now that is disputed because her father, he is actually a shareholder of Big Machine Records, and so they said that they did know because the father is a shareholder and so he knew about the sale. That's disputed. That's just another side part of this whole story.
Okay, so what did Scooter Braun say? What's his version of events here?
Scooter Braun's version of events is that he tried to have an open conversation with Taylor Swift and that that was rejected by her team and Taylor Swift herself at every stage. And so he's saying, we tried to have a conversation that didn't go down, and so now I can't really engage with you if you're not even willing to speak to me.
So a bit of a stalemate there, and so how did we get from that stalemate to where we are today, which is that the ownership of these masters has now transferred to Taylor Swift.
So before we get to what happened two weeks ago, what you also need to know is that in twenty twenty, Scooter Braun actually sold the masters of Taylor's albums to someone else. He then sold it to This.
Is complicated, I know.
He then sold it to a private equity firm that is called Shamrock Capital. And so for the past five years they have been the owners of these masters.
Okay, so Scooter Braun owns it because he bought Big Machine Records. Yes, he then sells it, just the masters to a private equity firm. The private equity firm then holds these masters until two weeks ago when Taylor Swift flights them exactly.
So, two weeks ago, Taylor Swift announced via a letter on her website that she had bought the rights to her albums. Now, a lot of headlines were saying that she bought back the rights to her albums, but I don't think that's accurately because you can't buy it back if you never owned.
She never actually had she never own ownership over it. Yeah right, I'll.
Read you out some of her statement. She said, to say this is the greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it. All I have ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright, with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy. And so what she's saying there is that she was actually able to buy these completely herself, and so now she has full ownership of
all of the music that she has ever created. I also want to say she addressed what we haven't even spoken about, is that she re recorded her albums. She remembered that Taylor's version, Taylor's version.
Okay, the pieces are coming together. Yeah, slowly, but surely the pieces are coming together. Okay, So let me just make sense of this for all the non Swifties listening. Yes, so she was in the situation where she didn't own the masters of these songs that were the early albums, and so I'd say we're talking here like early twenty twenty.
Yep.
She then thought to herself, all right, well, if I can't own those masters, I'll go record new masters.
Exactly. Ah huh, And so that is why she was re recording her first six albums. She actually only got through four of them. And so everyone this year has been speculating that we were going to get reputation your era. Yes, of course, so we were all waiting for a reputation announcement, and instead she announced it she's actually bought back the masters to those albums.
I do want to say though, that I mean, there is obviously with that statement, there's a real sense of artistic ownership and the owner of the intellectual property is now the creator of the song. And I think that there's obviously a lot of merit and truth to that, but it can't be ignored that there is massive commercial benefit to owning masters of songs as well.
I see what you're saying. You're saying like this is a business deal at the end of the day that will result in great financial benefit for her.
Well, it rightly ensures that she continues to profit from her work.
On which she would say is a great thing because she created.
It, of course, and she would say that every artist should have that arrangement with their own songs. Yes, but it's important to know, I mean, you know, Taylor Swift is one of the most successful business people on the planet, and this essentially now means that for the rest of her life she'll be able to license her own songs, her masters, to movies, to new artists. I mean, think about the way that Beatles songs are used sixty seventy
years after they're recorded. So it's a major move in the business of music as well as obviously a really fulfilling move for her as an artist. Yeah, definitely, Billy, thank you for that. That is a lovely thing to listen to on a holiday Monday for those who are on public holidays today. A really interesting story, but one that is filled with a good news ending.
Yes, thank you for letting me yap for it. I also want to say, I hope I haven't been too biased in my reporting at the Daily OLS. We obviously try to report the news without fear or favor.
And yeah, you really set that one up.
Yeah, I really. I don't know if I started it by really being unbiased.
No, it's fantastic. I mean it's good you went. You couldn't possibly have been biased after you went to every single night a per Sydney tour and that is all we've got time for on this holiday Monday. We'll be back again tomorrow morning with another episode. Until then, have a beautiful day.
Bye. My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Calcoton woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gatighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.