Taylor Swift fans are celebrating the end of a contract that blocked her from re-recording her old music amid a row over ownership with her former record label.
It means the 30-year-old songstress can now regain control over her first five studio albums by recording copycat versions and releasing them on her new label.
Swift announced her intention to re-record the albums last year, after Big Machine Label Group – the label she signed to aged 15 – was sold to Scooter Braun, a man with whom she has a long-running feud. She is now signed to Universal Music.
Fans of the country singer – worth an estimated $365million – got #TaylorIsFree trending on Twitter to celebrate the date.
Excited: Fans got the hashtag #TaylorIsFree trending Sunday to celebrate the fact that as of November 1, pop superstar Taylor Swift can now re-record her original music again
Swift said she planned to re-record her old music to effectively regain control of the records from her old label, after it was sold to a man she has a long-running feud with
‘Owned by Taylor Swift,’ one fan wrote, alongside a photoshopped image of the singer holding all of her albums.
‘Taylor can finally put “owned by Taylor Swift” on all of her albums,’ another said.
Taylor signed with Big Machine Label Group back in 2006 after founder and then-owner Scott Borchetta discovered her singing in a Nashville coffee shop.
Borchetta helped guide her from raw talent to global pop phenomenon, scooping up Grammys, AMAs, Billboard Music Awards and seven Guinness World records along the way.
Her first six albums were released on Big Machine, and provided the label 80 per cent of its revenue, according to Variety.
Swift left the label in 2018 and signed with Universal Music, but ownership of the master copies of her first albums – the first copy from which all subsequent ones are made – remained with Big Machine.
In early 2019, Borchetta sold the company to Ichaca Holdings, a music conglomerate owned by Scooter Braun.
The row erupted after Scott Borchetta, who singed Swift in 2006 aged 15 (together left), sold his record label to Scooter Braun (right), a man with who she has a long-running feud
Braun – an entrepreneur, record executive and investor – has managed a slew of stars including Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, and has been named on the Time 100 list of most-influential people and Forbes ’40 under 40′ list.
He also has a decade-long feud with Swift that has played out in rows between her and artists he manages, including when Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Music Awards.
Swift said she was unaware that Big Machine had been sold to Braun’s firm in a $300million deal, calling it her ‘worst-case scenario’.
‘This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term “loyalty” is clearly just a contractual concept,’ she said at the time.
‘When that man says “Music has value”, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.
‘Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words “Scooter Braun” escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to.’
Feud: In 2019, Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records sold Swift’s back catalog to Scooter Braun in a $300 million deal. She then claimed they blocked her from using her own music
New era: She said during an interview on Good Morning America in August last year that her contract allowed her to begin recording her old tracks from November 2020
Swift claims she tried to buy back the master copies of her first albums from Big Machine, but the terms she was offered were ‘intolerable’.
‘I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and “earn” one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in,’ Swift said.
‘I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future.’
In August 2019, as her first album Lover was released with Universal, Swift announced plans to re-record her old songs – saying the process would begin in November this year.
In November 2019, the row escalated again after Swift said Borchetta and Braun were planning to bar her from recording a medley of her past songs to play at the AMA Awards in 2019, when she was going to be named artist of the decade.
She also claimed they were blocking her from using any of the songs in an upcoming Netflix documentary.
Braun and Borchetta were eventually forced to back down after a social media backlash, that was also picked up by Democrat politicians including then-presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Swift has become increasingly political in recent years, breaking with years of silence in 2018 to attack a Republican running for office in her home state of Tennessee.
Swift action: Her politically-charged song Only the Young has been used in a new music video in support of the Democratic Party ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election
The pop superstar came out swinging as she vowed to oppose senate candidate Marsha Blackburn over her voting record on women’s rights and LGBTQ rights.
Swift said she refuses to vote for someone ‘who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love.’
She took issue with Blackburn voting against gay marriage, supporting business owners who refuse service to gay couples, voting against equal pay laws, and against a bill which aimed to protect women from domestic violence.
In the 2020 race, she has given permission for her politically-charged song Only the Young to be used in a video in support of the Democratic Party.
The promo begins with Senator Kamala Harris, the vice-presidential nominee, asking: ‘Why are so many powerful people trying to make it so difficult for us to vote?’
The video then goes into Swift’s song which is played to backdrop of events from the last four years under the Trump presidency, including issues of immigration, children being separated from their parents at the border, and the coronavirus pandemic.