As it should be...

[OutrageProductions]

Taylor Swift just bought back the rights to her first six albums released on Big Machine.

If you create the art, you should own the art.

[hockeyjx]

2 hours ago, OutrageProductions said:

If you create the art, you should own the art.

100%

[Shane_B.]

2 hours ago, OutrageProductions said:

If you create the art, you should own the art.

Not if you sign away your rights to it. It's pretty cut and dry, legal, and very common in the music industry. I remember reading that Paul McCartney wanted to buy the rights back to The Beatles music from Michael Jackson after they were sold to him and he said he wanted too much. I don't know if he ever got them back or not.

I haven't read about this, but you said she bought back her rights, which implies she gave someone else control when she signed a contract. She had no rights at that point.

Glad she was able to get them back though. Not bashing her or anyone for feeling wronged by this situation, but she must have signed a contract. And the fact she paid them and didn't sue them tells me she knew going in what the deal was.

[Mr No Name]

I thought she was a manufactured artist, someone who just sang songs other people wrote and produced?

obviously a talented gal.   $300 million dollars she had to pay apparently.

[Salvatore Sorice]

I think she had the copyrights (correct me if wrong) and has been re-releasing all of the early albums as "Taylors Version" (brilliant move IMO). Maybe Big Machine realized they would eventually make less and less so decided to give up, take what they could get, and sell back to her? 

[OutrageProductions]

Ok folks; to clear up some confusion: as the writer, she held the copyrights to the songs, but her masters were owned by the record label (pretty common industry practice since the 1930's) as a rising artist. The controversy arose when Big Machine was usurped by a hostile takeover from someone who also represented Kanye West, and they enjoined Taylor's use of the "mechanical" rights to her performances on those masters; meaning she could not perform them identically and receive exclusive remuneration, in either live or documentary productions.

Which is why she chose to recreate most of those recordings as "Taylor's Versions" and then retain the mechanical rights as well.

Very few artists through history have managed to regain ownership of their masters once signed over or their catalog was sold.