Why Artists Buy Their Masters Back

Taylor Swift broke her silence on her much anticipated "Taylor's Version" re-recordings, but probably not in the way fans expected. In a letter posted to her website, Swift revealed that she had fully purchased the rights to the original recordings of her first six albums. 

Though she didn't reveal the price for the purchase, Billboard shares that the price is estimated to be somewhere in the ballpark of $360 million. 

While she's not the first artist to attempt to repurchase her masters, re-record or her songs, or eventually gain ownership of her music, Swift is certainly the most high-profile. But why do artists buy their masters back in the first place?

How Music Copyrights Work

To understand why people pay big sums of money for music ownership, we have to understand how copyrights work in music. And really, how music makes money in general. 

When a song is written, it immediately generates copyrights that cover the melody and the lyrics. This is known as the "publishing" for the song, and the publishing is always split up as a writer's portion and a publisher's portion. If you're a sole writer without a publisher, then you own all of the song's writing and publishing. 

However, if you co-write the song with others, that share starts to get split up. It gets more complicated than that, but just know that the underlying composition of the song makes money separately from the recording, and there are lots of people who make money strictly as songwriters who never record or really perform the songs they write.

Then, when the song is recorded, it generates another copyright. This is known as the master recording. Traditionally, if an artist is signed to a record label, that record label will own some (or likely all) of the master recording rights to the songs that get recorded. 

Having ownership of these rights means you make money from them. But it also means you get to decide where they get used (like in movies, games, events, etc.) and if you'll allow people to make other versions of them. This is also why you see so many cover song versions. When somebody records a cover song, they own the master recording of that version and make money from it while the owners of the publishing also get paid. 

How People Make Money In Music (Now)

There have always been a lot of ways to make money in music. Copyrights, live performances, sponsorships, and merch have always been popular. Now artists also have access to social media, sync licensing, livestreaming, fan clubs, NFTs (in some cases), and other avenues. Still, actually owning the rights to your songs and recordings is one of the best ways to set yourself up with long-term assets.

But back in the day, big artists owning all of their copyrights was pretty much unheard of. Nowadays, most artists are much more aware of who actually owns what and for how long.

The Internet and file sharing turned the music industry on its head. Because many record labels made the bulk of their money from owning the master rights to songs that people were instead pirating, they either had to drastically reduce their investment into artists, downsize, or dissolve altogether. 

Spotify and the music streaming model played a huge role in reversing this trend, since suddenly people were willing to pay $10 per month to legally have access to all of the music instead of continually risking quality and content by pirating music. Spotify and other streaming platforms pay both the owner of the master and the owners of the publishing, though it's far from equal. The vast majority of money in the streaming era comes from owning your master recording. 

So yes, while there's a lot more money in recorded music now than in say, 2010, that money is going to whomever owns the copyrights. 

Enter The Owner

So now, imagine you're one of those bands from the 2000-2010 era. You probably entered into a pretty rough record deal, maybe had one radio hit or something, and eventually lost your support system from the label. But now all of a sudden you're hearing that the music industry is back...but you're not seeing that cash.

If an artist didn't have a reversion clause (a point at which master ownership would return to them) or the ability to re-purchase their masters, they were stuck not seeing much of the money from the industry boom. 

This is around the point where we start to see the idea of re-recording songs to own a master really take off. Taylor Swift was not the first artist to think, "Hmm, maybe I'll just re-record my old masters and put them out myself." Though her situation was certainly unique and also laced with plenty of industry drama. 

But with arguably the world's most passionate fanbase behind her, Swift's re-recordings were massive hits. And at an estimated price tag of $360 million, owning her original recordings was as much a personal decision as a business one. "To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it," Swift says in her letter. She credits her fans rallying around the Taylor's Version re-releases and her Eras Tour success for allowing her the ability to even purchase the albums back (Swift became a billionaire in 2023, now with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion). 

So Is It About Money Or Something Else?

Selling publishing and writer rights to songs is baked into the industry. And in fact, buying and selling catalogs has become increasingly popular in the last few decades. 

Why does it seem more rare for artists to buy and sell masters? For starters, pretty much all artists at least own the writer's share of their publishing when they write songs. Very few who sign record deals early on have a controlling ownership of the their masters. Sometimes labels will give the artist a percentage royalty for their masters, but that label still retains full rights to use them how they want. 

That makes it really rare for major label artists to own their masters. And in most cases, the ones who do are able to because they had the wealth to buy them back or the leverage to negotiate that deal. The Weeknd reportedly owns his own masters. Beyoncé has owned her masters since 2010 when she launched her own label. Metallica, U2, Rihanna, Jay-Z all regained ownership of their masters at some point, while a few select others like Chance The Rapper never gave them up.

In many cases, it's a savvy financial decision and a bet on yourself that your masters will continue to drive value. Especially if you continue to create more music, perform live, and otherwise move your brand forward. 

But it's also incredibly symbolic. There's no doubt these artists crunched the numbers and determined it made sense for them to spend the money now to buy their own assets. But what artist really enjoys the idea of not owning what they create? 

Swift, in particular, already created a brilliant solution that essentially devalued her old catalog and fast-tracked her net worth. But there's no doubt creating her new versions were also a form of therapy and, as she admits, underscored by a sense of longing to truly own everything she made as a teenager and beyond. 

That raises the question if it makes sense for much "smaller" artists to also find avenues to purchasing their own music back. At the end of the day, it's a personal decision. If buying back your masters means taking out a loan or going in debt or otherwise doing something that makes little financial sense, re-recording the masters and urging your fan base to listen to those instead could be a better alternative. 

However, wanting to own what you create as an artist is an undeniably strong pull, whether it makes financial sense or not.