Taylor Swift Regains the Rights to Her First Six Albums
Image Courtesy of Good Morning America
By Luis Zonenberg
In the vast sea of evergrowing music icons, none are more famous or prevalent today than the original Swifty herself. Her last tour, which began in 2023, was dubbed “The Eras Tour” and became the highest grossing concert tour of all time, earning over $2 billion in revenue and even spawning a successful concert film as well. With almost 170 million records sold worldwide, it is easy to see why Taylor Swift has become one of the top-selling artists of all time!
For all the praise and hype Swift gains, it is hard to ignore all the problems she encounters offstage. Recent reports suggest that the famous pop icon had secretly been fighting an uphill battle to regain full control of all her catalogued music titles. Despite having 11 albums recorded, Swift only had the rights to five of the albums she published. For the longest time, her first six albums were under the control of Big Machine Records before being sold to Shamrock Capital in 2020.
Swift had campaigned for many years to regain the rights to her original album with little success. In fact, this battle ultimately led to her re-recording several of her original albums in an attempt to regain the rights for them. Released under the title “Taylor’s Version,”many of her original songs were remixed and re-recorded due to this ongoing legal struggle she had been fighting behind the scenes.
After many years of struggling to reclaim the rights, though, her labor has finally born fruit. In a personal letter she posted to her website, Swift revealed that “all of the music I’ve ever made…now belongs…to me.”
Swift bought back the rights to her original six albums for a whopping $360 million, relatively close to what Shamrock paid for it back in 2020.
“All I’ve 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,” Swift shares.
On Shamrock’s personal website, the private equity firm released a statement saying, “We are thrilled with this outcome and are so happy for Taylor.”
Swift even went on to address her fans, saying, “I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.” To call this a massive win for Taylor Swift could not further underline the importance of this occasion.
After struggling for so long, it is rather momentous to see Swift now with full control of all her music. Swift has poured so much energy and passion into her songs, devoting much of her life to entertaining audiences around the world.
“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,” Swift states.
Congratulations indeed Miss Swift. I am most certain all fellow swifties will stay tuned to see what lies next in this long windy road life has in store for us all.
