| Taylor Swift finally got her songs back. The pop star has acquired the rights to her first six albums from the investment group Shamrock Capital, ending a yearslong quest that started when her first record label was sold to music mogul Scooter Braun. Swift says she now controls all of her music, concert films, music videos and unreleased work. “To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she wrote on her website. The exact terms haven’t been disclosed. The New York Post reported last week that the deal was worth $600 million to $1 billion. One person familiar with the agreement put the price at the low end of that range, while another described the numbers as highly inaccurate. Both declined to be identified because they aren’t allowed to talk about the terms. I covered most of the drama a few years ago — and can tell you everyone who touched Swift’s music made money. Scott Borchetta, who discovered Swift, got $300 million when he sold his company (her label Big Machine) to Braun in 2019. Braun sold Swift’s albums to Shamrock a year later for about $360 million, while keeping the rest of the label. Shamrock has now exited, likely at some premium, after a few years of collecting royalties. Swift is the biggest winner of anyone. She channeled her frustration into the most productive stretch of her career, buttressed by the best marketing campaign in the history of the music business. The Swift turnaroundIt’s easy to forget now, but Swift’s career was at a low when Braun bought her records. Her two most recent albums, Reputation and Lover, were among the slowest selling of her career. Both the press and the critics seemed to have soured on her. In her public fight with Braun, Swift rebranded herself as the ultimate victim, an artist who had been wronged by greedy music and private equity executives. She then used extra downtime during the pandemic to rerecord some of her initial albums. Most people in the music industry dismissed the strategy, assuming most fans wouldn’t care. Oops. Swift had cultivated the loyalty of her fans like the biggest acts from South Korea. The new records generated billions of streams and millions of dollars. Revisiting those initial works set up a global tour that touched every era of Swift’s career — a greatest hits tour for a pop star still in her mid-30s. While Swift had always been bigger in the US than she was abroad, she sold out stadiums all over the world and established the best-selling tour in music history. She also released four new records in as many years, winning two more album-of-the-year Grammys. Swift has won that award four times, more than anyone else. She ascended to a level we haven’t seen since Michael Jackson or the Beatles. Revisiting Swift’s many feudsWhile Swift has portrayed the pursuit of her master recordings as a crusade for artists’ rights, pretty much everyone involved in the saga did what you would expect them to do. Having become the biggest pop star in the world, Swift left Big Machine for a more lucrative deal at Universal Music Group, the biggest record company in the world. She secured ownership of her future work as part of the agreement. Swift wanted to buy her earlier albums but couldn’t come to terms with Big Machine. Borchetta, having lost his biggest act, opted to sell his company to the highest bidder while the catalog was still fresh. Then there was the problem of the buyer. Braun, manager of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, had a checkered history with Swift from his time working with Kanye West. (If you are unfamiliar with the history between West and Swift, here is a timeline.) Braun offered to sell Swift her albums, according to Music Business Worldwide, but the two sides couldn’t come to terms. Swift posited a different version of events and accused Braun of trying to silence her. Braun then sold the albums to Shamrock at about twice what he paid for them. He later sold his whole company for about $1 billion. So while Swift and Braun may forever be linked as enemies, they both emerged from their dispute far wealthier. As for Shamrock, it’s not losing money on sale to Swift. To other musicians, the group now looks like a good partner, which is important for a firm that buys lots of catalog. A lasting influenceFights between artists and labels are as old as the music business, but Swift may be one of the last major pop stars to worry about not owning their work. Most major musicians today license their songs to labels. Pull up new albums from Olivia Rodrigo and Morgan Wallen. Notice their works are under exclusive license to major record labels — not owned by the companies. (Rodrigo and Wallen release through subsidiaries of Universal Music Group.) These past few years have reinforced Swift's reputation as the most business-savvy artist alive. She single-handedly influenced negotiations between major music groups, streaming companies and social-media services. Her success with rerecordings prompted labels to adjust their contracts and prevent artists from following her lead. The best of Screentime (and other stuff) | The best-selling tour so far this year belongs to Coldplay, which has grossed $142 million and sold 1.3 million tickets, according to Billboard. Shakira is close on their heels, followed by the Korean pop group Seventeen, the Eagles and Paul McCartney. Shakira had the best-selling single run, grossing $47 million across seven nights in Mexico City. Mexico City’s Estadio GNP Seguros has been the No. 2 venue in music so far this year, topped only by… the Sphere. The No. 1 album in the world is…Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem. Country music’s biggest star sold the equivalent of 493,000 copies in the US during its first week, the biggest debut of the year. While Wallen is bigger in the US than he is abroad, this album hits globally. He's currently the No. 1 artist on YouTube and No. 3 on Spotify (behind Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift). Why it’s hard to be a smaller streaming service… Starz said it will spend about $700 million on programming next year. That is less than what Netflix spends every month. Netflix hosted a big fan event in Los Angeles Saturday night to tout its upcoming slate of shows. Deals, deals, deals - The New York Times, which sued OpenAI, agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for artificial intelligence use.
- Mobile game developers could make an extra $4 billion from Apple, thanks to a recent court ruling.
- The US Justice Department is investigating two major players in live music over an arena in Texas.
- Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings has joined the board of AI firm Anthropic.
I haven’t been listening to new music since I have been reliving college for the past few days. How do you feel about indie rock and electronic pop circa 2010? (Correction: A headline in last week’s newsletter should have read, CoComelon moves to Disney from Netflix.) | 
