Author: Brittany Spanos / Source: Rolling Stone
Following the expiration of her contract with Big Machine, Taylor Swift has announced that she will sign a joint deal with Republic and UMG.
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Taylor Swift has announced that she has signed a new record deal with Republic Records and Universal Music Group, her first label change since signing with Big Machine Records at the age of 15.
Swift’s deal with the Nashville-based, Universal Music Group-distributed independent label expired this month.Swift made the announcement in an that featured a photo of her with UMG Chairman/CEO Sir Lucian Grainge and Republic Records co-founder and CEO Monte Lipman at the lead of a set. “Over the years, Sir Lucian Grainge and Monte Lipman have been such incredible partners,” she wrote, noting that she is still part of Universal Music Group. “It’s so thrilling to me that they, and the UMG team, will be my label family moving forward.” Terms of the deal were not immediately announced.
Swift unveiled two important elements of the new deal: the first of which will be ownership of her masters going forward. Big Machine has ownership of her first six albums, and there is no further details on whether or not that element of the contract had been negotiated following her exit.
She also revealed that as part of her UMG deal, she has asked the company to ensure that any sale of UMG’s shares in music-streaming company Spotify — which went public earlier on the New York Stock Exchange this year — result in equity for UMG’s artists. In years previous, Swift has been a vocal champion of artists’ rights, engaging in a public war with Apple Music over artist payouts when that service first launched. “I asked that any sale of their Spotify shares result in a distribution of money to their artist, non-recoupable,” she wrote. “They have generously agreed to this, at what they believe will be much better terms and paid out previously by other major labels.”
She ended her note with a “heartfelt thanks” to Big Machine’s Scott…
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