Earning a Fair Share: Where Copyright Law Falls Short for Creators and What Policies Have Narrowed the Divide

Musicians have long battled to be fairly compensated for the value of their work. Through strategic negotiations by the industries top artists and policymakers taking a stand, the scale is beginning to tilt in their favor.

Taylor Swift turned heads in the music world once again when she announced in May that “All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me.” Taylor Swift, My Letter (May 30, 2025), https://www.taylorswift.com/read-my-letter/.  This announcement made official that Swift, for the first time, possessed full ownership of her master recordings. See id. This ended a 20-year battle that was most recently highlighted by the sale of Swift’s masters from music manager and executive Scooter Braun to private equity firm Shamrock Capital in 2020. See id.; Hazel Cills, Taylor Swift buys back the rights of her first 6 albums, NPR (May 30, 2025, 2:07 PM ET), https://www.npr.org/2025/05/30/nx-s1-5418039/taylor-swift-masters-rights-big-machine. As Swift’s fans who meticulously followed this saga rejoiced, many other music fans were faced with the question: what are master recordings, why is it important to own them, and is this the only way artists can profit from their recordings?

A master recording is the original recording of a song, considered to be the “most authentic supersonic account of a song,” as opposed to downstream copies of the work. Leni, What Does It Mean to Own Your Masters?, Amuse (Oct. 15, 2020), https://www.amuse.io/content/owning-your-masters?cn-reloaded=1&cn-reloaded=1. Owning a master recording means that you own the copyright to that work, granting you the freedom to license the recording for use in movies, TV shows, and commercials, while also receiving protection from attempts from others to appropriate the recording. See id.; Loren E. Mulraine, Exposing the “Folklore” of Re-Recording Clauses (Taylor’s Version), 9 JIPL 402, 409 (2022). While this is not the only component of a musical work that can be copyrighted, ownership of the copyright to a master recording is certainly the most coveted. 9 JIPL at 409. These benefits and protections are the foundation of the music industry, as licensing fees provide opportunities for steady revenues in an ecosystem that otherwise exposes artists to peaks and valleys in their profitability, depending on their popularity and recent releases at any given time. See Victoria Villanueva, The Great War (Taylor’s Version): Examining the New Era of Recording Artists & Master Recording Ownership, 51 J. Legis. 163, 167 (2025). While it may seem apparent that the performer of a work would own their master recordings, that is rarely the case, especially for new artists. When signing amateur artists, recording companies may look to offset the risk they are taking to promote an unknown artist by requiring the artist to assign ownership of their masters in exchange for an advance payment and a limited monetary stream to produce, distribute, and promote. See id. New artists, unlikely to have profited much from their work yet, will often take this tradeoff in order to get the money they need to launch their career, which may prove consequential in the long term. See id.

Several high-profile artists have publicly battled for the rights to their master recordings. Before Taylor Swift made headlines on the matter, there was Prince. In 1999, 21 years and 17 albums into his career and business relationship with Warner Bros. Records (now Warner Records), Prince found it “completely abhorrent” that he did not own his master recordings and let the public know. Balt. Sun, This time around, the Artist calls the tune; Music: The former Prince says he will re-record his entire song catalog as the next salvo in his ownership spat with the Warner Bros. label (September 28, 2021), https://www.baltimoresun.com/1999/04/15/this-time-around-the-artist-calls-the-tune-music-the-former-prince-says-he-will-re-record-his-entire-song-catalog-as-the-next-salvo-in-his-ownership-spat-with-the-warner-bros-label/; Melinda Newman, Inside Prince’s Career-Long Battle to Master His Artistic Destiny, Billboard (April 28, 2016), https://www.billboard.com/music/features/prince-battle-to-control-career-artist-rights-7348551/. Prince tried many tactics, such as changing his alias in an effort to make his contract unenforceable, publicly comparing his business relationship with Warner Bros. Records to slavery, and threatening to re-record his 17 studio albums. See Newman, supra. Years later, in 2014, Prince cut a deal with Warner Bros. Records that gave him ownership of his master recordings in exchange for the production of two more albums. See id. While the payoff required patience, Prince’s efforts set the stage for future artists, such as Kanye West and Taylor Swift to act publicly in their pursuits to obtain their masters. Swift famously re-recorded the first four of her studio albums, while West publicly shared details of recording contracts—two methods that differed substantially, but were successful in drawing mass public attention to the issue of artists’ rights. See Cills, supra; Noah Yoo, What Does Kanye Actually Gain (or Lose) From Sharing His Record Contracts?, Pitchfork (September 18, 2020), https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/kanye-record-contracts-universal/.

These battles served to be more than just publicity stunts, as Congress has reacted to the changing needs of music artists as the industry has evolved throughout the decades. An early and notable revision of the Copyright Act took place in 1976 to strengthen protections for creative works produced by individuals, inserting a provision to send all rights in creative material, including master recordings and compositions, back to the artist who created them after thirty-five years. See 51 J. Legis. At 169; 17 U.S.C. § 203(a)(3). Furthermore, Congress made many notable revisions to the copyright landscape in 2015, after the music industry had become definitively digital, with the passage of the Music Modernization Act (MMA). The MMA sought to restore the balance between songwriters and publishers, record labels and artists, and the digital service providers like at a time when the owners of master recordings collected almost five times more per digital stream than the creators of the song. See Eric Beall, What the Music Modernization Act Means for Music Streaming, Berklee Online (October 10, 2019), https://online.berklee.edu/takenote/the-music-modernization-act-and-4-steps-songwriters-can-take-now-to-prepare-for-it/. To do so, the MMA updated the copyright landscape by creating a new compulsory blanket licensing system for mechanical works, updating the rate standards applicable to music licensing, providing copyright royalties to pre-1972 artists, ensuring that producers, mixers, and sound engineers could receive compensation for their creativity, and more. S. Rep. No. 115-339, at 2 (2018). Included in these reforms was the creation of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLA), a non-profit governing agency charged with administering blanket licenses and maintaining a centralized, authoritative database that allows music publishers to definitively register their works and ensure they receive royalties from streaming services. See Rep. Darrell Issa, The Music Modernization Act Transformed Licensing, but There’s More Work to Do, Variety (June 27, 2023 5:55am PT), https://variety.com/2023/music/opinion/music-modernization-act-five-year-guest-column-darrell-issa-1235655273/. This was the first non-profit governing agency of its kind and has been credited as one of the MMA’s key successes. See id.

Despite the successes of the MMA, Congress is still considering ways to provide creators a greater share of royalties, most notably through the introduction of the American Music Fairness Act. S. 326, 119th Cong. (2025); H.R. 861119th Cong. (2025). Led by Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Alex Padilla (D-Cal.) in the Senate and Representatives Darrell Issa (R-Cal.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) in the House of Representatives, this bill would require terrestrial radio broadcasters to pay royalties to American music creators when they broadcast their songs. Senator Marsha Blackburn, Blackburn, Padilla, Issa, Colleagues Introduce Bill to Ensure Artists Receive Fair Compensation for Their Songs (January 31, 2025), https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2025/1/news/blackburn-padilla-issa-colleagues-introduce-bill-to-ensure-artists-receive-fair-compensation-for-their-songs. The bill is structured to target large corporate broadcasters, as it provides protections for qualifying small and local stations (i.e., those  that fall under $1.5 million in annual revenue and whose parent companies fall under less than $10 million in annual revenue overall) by allowing them to play unlimited music for less than $500 annually, as well as further protections for  small, college, and non-commercial stations. See id. This legislation could be the next step in Congress’s saga with the music industry, and its passage would be no small feat, as the United States is the only democratic country in the world that does not ensure artists are not paid for the use of their music on AM and FM radio. See id.

Overall, it is clear that the music industry is no stranger to headlines, even when it comes to the intricacies of copyright law and major policy developments. Whether it is long running campaigns by artists or detailed negotiating and legislating by members of Congress, there are many ways to keep progressing artists’ rights, and the importance of doing so is reaching an all-time high with the implications of modern technology. As fans continue to sing along to the hits of the day, it is important to continue asking: who made this, are they making their fair share, and what is being done to ensure that?