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हिन्दी 
Imagine your legacy not belonging to you.
Well, that’s the silent nightmare pop icon Taylor Swift has been grappling with since 2019. That year, her first record label, Big Machine, sold the master recordings of 6 of her original albums to music executive Scooter Braun. If you’re wondering why the billionaire hitmaker didn’t choose to simply buy back the master recordings then and there — just know she didn’t have the right to. The ‘deal’ per se with Big Machine was, that she could ‘earn back’ an original album each (mind you, hers to begin with anyway if we speak of IP) for every new album that she recorded for the label.
Known best for turning her pain into big bucks-minting melodies, Taylor then embarked on a VERY, very personal side quest of hers which would in essence at least, allow her to ‘own’ her work. She commenced the lengthy process of re-recording her OG albums, this time marked with ‘Taylor’s Version’. Between 2021 and 2023, she managed to push out 4 of these re-recorded albums — Fearless (originally released in 2009), Red (from 2012), Speak Now (from 2010) and 1989 (from 2014). These reworked renditions also carried some ‘From the Vault’ tracks, which hadn’t made it to the OG albums.
So what changed? A massive and mind you very expensive, stroke of luck.
Back in November 2020, Scooter sold the master recordings to private equity firm Shamrock Capital at $300 million. Some erroneous media reports suggest that Taylor paid anywhere between $600 million to a full billion to get her music back, but a The Guardian report pegs it as ridiculously high. A more plausible number doing the rounds is $360 million.
In a lengthy letter addressed to her fans on her website, Taylor shared the news of having bought back her master recordings — including her videos, concert films, album art and photography and unreleased songs, in a deal which she described as “honest, fair and respectful”. She elaborated, “This was a business deal to them, but I really felt like they saw it for what it was to me: my memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams. I am endlessly thankful. My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead”.
Last but not the least, Taylor being Taylor, the pop culture icon also reflected on how this watershed moment in her personal X professional life was actually a win for artist autonomy in the bigger picture. She wrote, “Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen. Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion. You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted and ended us up here”.
It’s a great day to be a Swiftie!
