Just Say Yes and Listen to Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is the latest of many artists to fight the music industry over their own rights to their intellectual property and to also voice concern over its manipulative atmosphere. From the Beatles to Prince, many artists have struggled to retain control of their own music amidst the controlling titans of the music industry. In 2006 when Taylor Swift was at the cusp of her explosive music career, she immediately became immersed into the exploitative environment of the industry as a vulnerable teenager.

Unaware of the complexities of the agreements and contracts as a young artist without prior experience in business dealings, companies were willing to take advantage of her eagerness to utilize her artistic talents. For her first six albums, her music career was controlled by investors. When she first released her album “Fearless” in 2008 which was a catalyst for her widespread popularity, she did not control her own recordings. Instead, the Big Machine Records label company controlled it. Later in 2019, Scooter Braun purchased Big Machine, and along with it, Taylor Swift’s first six albums. Afterwards, the rights to her own music were sold to Shamrock Capital. This only further highlighted the lack of Taylor Swift’s control over her own music amidst the capriciousness of the music industry. However, recently she decided to re-record her music in order to devalue the original assets and give herself control over her own recordings.

Beginning with her first notable album Fearless, she is releasing her originals in a retelling of her story and her career under her own conditions. Emblematic of her new-found freedom, her new version of Fearless encompasses what she says is “the whole story, the entire vivid picture…the entire dreamscape that is my fearless album”. This means that she will be releasing all of the songs that she originally intended to release the first time around in 2008, but was prohibited from doing so by the Big Machine Records label company. Backed by her powerful and loyal fan base, she is already fostering success in reclaiming her music beginning with her new release of Fearless. However, this project is not just a singular, self-serving endeavor or the strife of a personal grudge. Instead, Taylor Swift has voiced her passion for maintaining control over artistic and intellectual property within the music industry not only just for herself, but for other artists struggling under similar exploitative conditions as herself. She even said that “hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read [about] this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation”. With her re-recordings, she is taking a powerful stance with her loyal fan base and advocating for self-empowerment amongst young artists. Although she is not the first to engage in a fight to secure ownership over her own art, she has further pronounced the importance of discussing music ownership. Investors within the music industry are always willing to take advantage of young artists without business acumen in order to exploit their intellectual property as they see fit. The fight to re-record her originals should not only serve as a symbolic gesture of empowerment, but also as a cautionary example for all artists who wish to maintain control of their artistic talents and individuality.