IN THE HISTORY of the music business, many artists have not had control over their own careers. What has recently made the topic into major news is that Taylor Swift has discussed her torrid experience in the industry. The pop star has a long record of challenging that powers that be, and while her latest battle is unlikely to end in victory, she has shone a light on one of the less understood aspects of how artists and record labels interact.
The gist of Ms Swift’s complaint, which she posted on social media on June 30th, is that someone she does not like or trust is taking ownership of her master recordings—the tapes or digital files from which albums are pressed and released—and they are free to do with them as they please. Ms Swift was 15 when she signed to Big Machine, an independent label set up by Scott Borchetta in 2005. Her contract ceded ownership of her masters to the label.
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Last year Mr Borchetta offered to give Ms Swift back her masters, but only one album at a time, with each new album she recorded. She refused and left Big Machine, signing instead to Republic, an imprint of Universal. Now Mr Borchetta has sold Big Machine to Scooter Braun, a talent manager who looks after the likes of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. Ms Swift wrote of the deal: “Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”
A label owning an artist’s master recordings is commonplace. Record companies operate in a similar way to pharmaceutical companies. Both spend fortunes on research and development, and in both cases most of the expenditure does not result in revenue. Pharma companies patent their drugs so they can make the money that feeds future research. Similarly, labels own recordings in exchange for the investment they have made not just in that artist—it can cost up to $1m to take an act from signing to their first release, with no guarantee of a hit—but also to fund new artists, of whom between one in four and one in ten will become successful.
Some artists do retain ownership of their masters, which they then license to a label to control, usually for a finite period. The cost of doing so is a much smaller advance payment on their contract. If the artist becomes successful this is perfect for them—it is what The 1975, a British pop-rock band, did with Universal—but if not, they end up with no money and a set of recordings no one is interested in.
But if they have signed away their masters and become successful, they look at the money that is not coming to them—via the label’s share of their record sales, or the revenue from licensing music to films, TV and adverts—and want to have it all. Artists also want to ensure that they control their recordings so that they are only released in a manner they feel befits their vision. Radiohead were furious when EMI released a “Greatest Hits” album after their departure from the label, but before their rights to their masters reverted to them.
Often, powerful artists will regain control of their masters. When a contract is due to expire, a label might offer ownership of past recordings as an incentive to sign a new one. But not always: Prince became The Artist Formerly Known as Prince in protest at Warner Brothers’ ownership of his recordings, and his catalogue is now bafflingly split: Warner owns everything released before 1996, Sony everything after. The Rolling Stones own everything they have released since 1971, which is currently licensed to Universal. All their recordings before “Sticky Fingers” are owned by ABKCO, a result of a disastrous deal the band signed in the 1960s.
Ms Swift’s distrust of Mr Braun appears to be as much personal as professional. As she is one of the biggest pop stars around, there is plenty of incentive for Mr Braun to try to generate as much revenue as possible from her Big Machine recordings, from which Ms Swift will continue to receive her contractual share. Still, all this is not quite as simple as the Big Bad Music Industry exploiting the poor, innocent artist. If it were, then no one would ever sign away their masters—but they do.
