After several years of negotiating, Taylor Swift was able to repurchase the rights to the master recordings of her first six albums. That is, she now has complete ownership over all her music.

Copyrights give creators the exclusive right to exhibit or sell copies of their original literary and artistic works. These include books, movies, paintings and posters, songs, and more. In the music industry, a song has two types of copyrights: publishing rights and sound recording rights. Publishing rights are given to the creators of the music composition and lyrics, i.e. the “sheet music.” Owners of publishing rights are entitled to get paid any time their song is played in public, whether that is the recorded version over the radio or a live performance by another artist. Sound recording rights are given to the owners of the master recordings of the song. Owners of these rights are entitled to compensation every time the recorded version is played (e.g. on television or in a restaurant) or purchased (e.g. a vinyl album or through a streaming service). Publishing rights are typically owned by the songwriter, and sound recording rights are typically owned by the record company.

Since 2019, Swift has been trying to regain full control of the master recordings, even going so far as to re-record some of her albums. Now that she has purchased the master recordings, she has full ownership of all of her music, which means she is the only one who profits when her musing is played. It is unclear how much Taylor Swift paid for the master recordings (they previously sold for $300 million), but after years of Bad Blood with her recording studio I am sure she would be happy to pay almost anything to Shake It Off.

Discussion Questions:

1) Economic theory indicates that monopolies create inefficiency. Why, then, would the government want to grant monopoly power in the form of copyrights and patents?

2) What do you expect happened to the value of the original master recordings after Taylor Swift re-recorded her first six albums? How does that impact the value of her new recordings?