In this segment of the "Own Your IP" series, Mike Michalowicz and a co‑host discuss the importance of owning the intellectual property behind a creator’s product, using Taylor Swift’s public battle over her master recordings as a case study. They explain how a rights holder—an unnamed young executive—retained ownership of Swift’s masters, collected royalties, and later sold those rights to another company while remaining embedded in every transaction, effectively keeping a cut of all future earnings. Frustrated by this hidden control, Swift decided to re‑record every album, creating new masters that she fully owns and encouraging fans to support the new versions. The conversation also notes that the idea was reportedly suggested by Kelly Clarkson on social media. The speakers frame this story as a lesson for creators: understand contract terms, retain control over your work, and consider strategic re‑recording or other tactics to reclaim ownership.
Lesson number 2, owning your product. Take control of your intellectual property. Taylor so famously fought to own her music masters and re-recorded her albums to retain ownership rights after a public legal dispute. This move not only empowered her but also empowered her fans to support her journey. This was huge.
What was that guy's name? Do you remember?
No, I saw a clip earlier today and now I can't even pull up his name.
There was a 5-part podcast series about Taylor Swift I listened to that went just through her journey. And what I took away from this trying to be impartial. This guy, whatever his name was, had legal rights to the brand of Taylor Swift. And as long as he maintained the rights, and it was designed for life, he gets a royalty or percentage of it. So every time his song sells, he gets a percentage. He's a young guy himself. Right now he's probably in his late 30s, early 40s. Wow. Basically, she signed a contract not knowing what she was signing to. And so there was a division between the two of them. What he starts doing, which sounds very nefarious, was selling his rights to another company, but also embedding himself in so that Taylor Swift, Felt like on the surface level, she was no longer dealing with this guy. It's a new company. Sure. New terms.
Yeah.
But he was still hidden in there. He's baking himself into every transaction. Right. So finally she's like, I've had enough. I'm gonna do the ultimate thing. I'm gonna rerecord every single one of my songs, a new version.
And I think that was based on a suggestion by Kelly Clarkson on social media. Like, you should just record all your albums and just tell your fan base to buy your albums.
Particularly nowadays, brands like this, once something's created, like a book, once a book is made, it's just pushing the print button and the next book comes out. So there's no additional original contribution from the artist that made that original book or that original song. And so whoever has the rights over that, all they have to do is push a print button and some money comes out, whatever portion is on their side. I think many people would say, I guess I lost out on my life's work. But the fact she asserted authority, it reminds me of Simone Biles in that when Simone was on the Olympic stage, not this most recent Olympics, but the prior, and she says, I'm not going to compete for my own mental health. She was the first person of that magnitude, that recognition to say, I'm going to do something that's truly in the best interest of myself and my sanity. And I think she opened the gateway or the door for others to say, yeah, my health matters. I wonder if Taylor Swift set the standard for others to say, my intellectual property is mine. I created this and I have the right to own it, protect it within the law. And she did within the law. If you want to call it a loophole, she found it. But I think she empowered us to understand the importance of possessing what you've invented and created. Yeah.
