Taylor Swift and the Masters Issue

On Sunday June 30th, a day when most of us was enjoying a good Trini Sunday lunch, Taylor Swift scorched the music world with a focused, righteous fury. This outburst came somewhat as a surprise to many in the music industry. Usually artists try to preserve the facade around making music. The messy, underlying nuts and bolts such as ownership of masters are usually kept under wraps. The picture painted is that prodigies like Taylor Swift dream up musical notes while floating on pink fluffy clouds and shower them below for us mortals to recite. To the amateur fan, it’s assumed that artists own the music they release. The fact that the artists do not own ‘their’ own music and sometimes don’t even create their own music? We doh want to hear that.

MASTERS???

Well let’s start at the beginning. If you don’t know, a master refers to the song recording itself, think the actual music file that is stored on your laptop or phone (mp3, wav, flac or whatever format). In most regions, whoever creates that song recording owns the master by default. This is why in Trinidad, the oldest hack in the book for some studios is to scam young artists into not having any agreement regarding ownership of their masters (we do not do this at Future Crab Studios).

Most labels when they sign artists usually ensure that they own the masters, either temporarily or indefinitely. Why? Because whoever owns the master, calls the shots anytime the song needs to be used. If the song is to be played in an advertisement or movie, the person who owns the master grants this right of use and sets the price. The owner of the master also decides if the song can be used at all. If you’re a pro-vegan lifestyle artist, the label can license your music to promote steak. Which may or may not result in beef. So yeah, owning masters is a big deal.

Labels get a bad rep but owning masters but in principle, it’s actually a fair deal. After all, the label pays for the recording to be made and to market it. Barring 360 deals, artists have many other avenues to make money independent of the label such as endorsement deals, performance revenue, publishing revenue, merchandise etc. Music is a business and labels are trying to make a profit. They give artists money up front (an advance) to create the product (the music). Through ownership of this music, the labels seek to at least break even (recoupment). The longer they own a song, the better chance they have of making a profit. According to some, less than 10% of artists recoup so labels try to maximize off their biggest artists to offset the duds.

BACK TO SWIFT

Now Taylor Swift knows all this. After all, she is as a business woman herself. One can argue that she was 15 when she made the deal but the label was also taking a risk on a new, unproven artist. That’s not really what she’s mad about though. Apparently the part she’s really pissed about is who owns her masters.  This person is Scooter Braun, better know as Justin Bieber’s manager.

By all accounts, Scooter bought Taylor Swift’s old label (Big Machine Records) and with that purchase gained ownership to many valuable pieces of music including Swift’s first 6 albums. Her issue with him is confusing but (hopefully) you can piece it together here and here. The exact reason is unclear but it weirdly involves Bieber horning Selena Gomez and the Kanye debacle where he referenced her in a derogatory manner on the song “Famous“.  Scooter seems only obliquely involved in these incidents. Not in Taylor’s head though. Either way, the point is, someone she doesn’t like owns a significant piece of her music.

Of course that’s just business. There isn’t anything she can really do. Nothing illegal was done here. She can’t even get her fans to boycott those albums because even if they did (Taylor Swift fans boycotting Taylor Swift albums???), that would hurt her own backend. A lot of experts compare it to when Michael Jackson bought the Beatles catalog. Michael paid $47.5 million in 1985. Paul McCartney, who was good friends with Michael was not pleased. They never really spoke again. These things often never end well.

FINAL THOUGHTS

As an artist, I totally empathize with Taylor. Especially as a songwriter. However, I understand the business and nothing wrong was done here. I suspect Taylor Swift knows this as well. Honestly I think the true motivation is to rally fans behind her upcoming album. Especially since Old Town Road has kept her two singles from number 1 on Billboard. I can’t see any true beef between Taylor Swift and Scooter. Taylor Swift is one of the true artisans of pity and I believe she has this one wrapped up. Expect a million copies sold in the first week for Lover.