The story behind (Taylor’s Version)

Imagine you made a song. The lyrics stemmed from your own experiences and emotions, the instruments and sounds on the track were your idea, and when you give it to the world to listen to, you are sharing one of your creations. Your music is your life’s work, you have been making your albums since you were 16. Then, one random day in June 2019, you get a call that someone has taken the rights to the sound of your music away from you. That’s exactly what happened to Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift had six albums out at this point: Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017). She had announced the previous year that she was leaving Big Machine Records, owned by Scott Borchetta, to sign with Republic Records to have full control over her masters. To own your masters means that you own the sound of your music, the original recording of the song, as well as the legal rights to be able to make a profit of the songs and albums. So, for Taylor to be able to own her own music, she would need her masters. She left Big Machine Records on a neutral note, because ultimately, she moved to be able to have a contract where she could own her masters, and then buy her masters off Big Machine records.

On June 30th, 2019, Big Machine Records gets bought by Scooter Braun, since this deal included everything that was owned by Big Machine records, Taylors masters had just been sold. Taylor took to Tumblr to tell her fans that this is the last thing she wanted: “Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t even given an opportunity to buy”. Safe to say, Scooter Braun wanted a piece of Taylor, and the only way to get it was to buy a whole record label.

What Scooter didn’t think about is that Taylor Swift owns the other important right to her albums: the publishing rights. Those are the rights to musical work itself, like the lyrics, structure and composition of the song. This meant that Taylor didn’t own her songs in the specific recording that has been released on Spotify or any other music streaming platforms, but she owned the contents of each of the songs. This is how Taylor has been able to re-record her first six albums. Taylor didn’t want to change the name of her work, so to indicate that she has full rights over them, she has (Taylor’s Version) behind each of the re-recorded tracks.

Taylor has re-recorded Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s version) and on October 27th 1989 (Taylor’s Version) gets released. This will mean by the end of 2023 she will have 4 of the 6 stolen albums back. Each re-record comes with tracks Taylor likes to call (From The Vault) meaning that

they were written at the same time as the album but were never recorded or put out onto said album until the re-record. So, with every re-record, not only do Taylor Fans known as Swifties get to know that their favourite artist owns her music, but they get to hear several bonus tracks.

If you want to start listening to more of her music (I highly encourage you to do so), keep in mind that the albums after 2017 do not have (Taylor’s Version) next to them because they are already owned by her and if you want to stream any albums before 2017 and see two versions, always stream the one with (Taylor’s Version) next to it.

Bibliography

Amuse ab. “What Does It Mean to Own Your Masters?” Amuse, 22 Feb. 2023, www.amuse.io/en/content/owning-your-masters#:~:text=The%20publishing%20rights%20refer%20to,covers%2C%20remixes%2C%20etc).

Gibson, Kelsie. “A Timeline of the Drama between Taylor Swift, Scooter Braun, and Scott Borchetta.” POPSUGAR Celebrity UK, 19 Nov. 2019, www.popsugar.co.uk/celebrity/taylor-swift-scooter-braun-scott-borchetta-feud-details-46916358?utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=US%3ANL&utm_source=www.google.com#photo-46916356.

Ingham, Tim. “Scooter Braun Wanted to Sell Taylor Swift Her Masters. What Happened?” Music Business Worldwide, 28 June 2023, www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/scooter-braun-wanted-sell-taylor-swift-masters/#:~:text=What%20happened%3F,-June%2022%2C%202023&text=Last%20Wednesday%20(June%2014)%2C,Shamrock%20Capital%20in%20October%202020.

Rao, Rhea. “Explained: Why Taylor Swift Is Re-Recording Her Studio Albums, and What It Says about Copyright Battles with Mega Music Labels-Entertainment News , Firstpost.” Firstpost, Firstpost, 16 Nov. 2021, www.firstpost.com/entertainment/explained-why-taylor-swift-is-re-recording-her-studio-albums-and-what-it-says-about-copyright-battles-with-mega-music-labels-10138211.html.