In August 2018, as per Billboard, Swift's attorney Donald Passman and her management team proposed to Big Machine Label Group that the masters be sold back to Swift as their contract was nearing expiration; the label group responded that it would happen only if she renewed her recording contract with Big Machine, agreeing to create more albums under the label for the next decade. The two parties never arrived at an agreement.

Hanging her master's over her head to be locked into another decade's worth of work isn't exactly "LITERALLY" offering her. From the sounds of it her team tried to negotiate she pay more money even to own them to not resign, and they refused all of her offers.

She moved on, and was content with her new record deal. It wasn't until Big Machine was purchased by private equity, mostly headed by Scooter Braun, did she actually decide to re-record her albums because they were now owned by him, and there was no way to buy them at all.

Taylor was 100% in her rights to re-record her masters and it was a legal way for her to gain ownership of her music again. Whether you like her or not, artists deserve the right to own their music, not have it dangled in front of them as a carrot to keep producing golden eggs.

There's even a wikipedia article on the entire subject, and it's pretty well documented now too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift_masters_dispute

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 59 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Exactly. The people complaining have no understanding of how record labels work, and how they dick over their artists.

Edit. Holy crap, what did I miss? Came back to read new comments and it's all deleted. The person even deleted their account. People be cray.