When Taylor Swift announced she had officially bought back the masters to her music catalog, it wasn’t just a win for Swifties—it was a seismic moment for the entertainment business. Today, Nicole unpacks the multimillion-dollar money trail behind the scenes, from record labels to private equity firms, and explains how Swift outmaneuvered the industry to reclaim her life’s work. It’s a story about ownership, leverage, and beating the system—plus, Nicole shares how listeners can invest in music royalties themselves. Because when it comes to showbiz… the business part matters most.
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I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Taylor Swift just announced that she bought back the masters to her music catalog. And this is big news if you're Swifty, of course. But even if you're not, this is actually not just a story about Taylor.
It is one of the most dramatic and high stakes stories in the history of the entertainment business. And the money trail touches on private equity, copyright law, billion dollar tours and affects the future of music.
So I'm going to unpack the background of this deal, what it means not just for Taylor Swift, but for the entire music industry, and how you can actually invest in your favorite artists because we can't forget show business is big business that we can profit from too. This saga starts back in 2019.
Taylor had just wrapped up her stadium tour for Reputation, which at the time was the highest grossing North American concert tour in history and grossed over $345 million. She had already won Grammys, released six studio albums, and smashed charting and sales records. That year, she left Big Machine Records, the Nashville-based label that signed her as a teenager.
She had moved over to Universal Music Group and negotiated a deal that gave her ownership of her masters, starting with the Lover album in 2019. That was a power move and definitely the exception in the industry, not the rule. A master recording, by the way, is the original version of a song or an album, so it's the source from which all the copies are made.
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