Pop star Taylor Swift has been with Big Machine Records for more than 12 years. Now, Swift broke up with her longtime record label and signed a new deal with Universal Music Group.
Swift announced on Instagram that she had signed a new multi-album, multiyear agreement with Universal Music and its subsidiary Republic Records. The pop star is now a free agent, and the new deal allows her to retain ownership of her master recordings.
Taylor Swift has digital streaming in mind that is why she requested for a bonus payout while negotiating a new record deal with Universal Music Group. Swift used her influence to get the music streaming services like Spotify to pay co-creators and other artists more money.
As part of her deal, Swift and Universal Music Group reportedly came to an arrangement where if the label sells any of its pieces in Spotify, the payout would be distributed to artists who work for them. According to Music Business Worldwide, Swift’s new record label, Universal Music owns less than 5% of the company that manages Spotify.
Spotify is a digital streaming service that people from all over the world can have access to all music genres for a monthly fee. This type of service is one of the most popular paid music streaming services, with 83 million subscribers worldwide. Depending on how well Spotify is doing per day, shares are worth about $1 billion.
For years, Swift has been on a mission to help co-creators and other musicians to get more money from their work. This is not the first time that she has made a statement about royalties when it comes to digital music streaming.
Back in late 2014, Swift stunned the music industry when she withdrew her music from Spotify and other digital streaming services. Then, announced that she had an exclusive deal with Apple Music. Months later, she criticized Apple for not paying royalties to musicians during the Apple Music’s three-month trial period. Immediately after, Apple reversed course.