if found return to taylor swift

When I began the process of reclaiming my backlist, Taylor Swift was the artist people closest to me invoked. An imperfect analogy for many reasons, but for the reasons it fit, it fit. Taylor’s Versions, a delicious gotcha on and symbol of (re)empowerment over an industry that frequently disempowers, exploits—if not outright abuses—the talent it runs on. Her consequent success deprived those who sought to undermine her, but the underpinning of that success was still comprised of what she herself remains deprived of: ownership of her original recordings. Her art.

Outlets are now reporting¹ she could have the opportunity to buy her masters back. So far, and despite the fact that it is her music and she should be and is entitled to own it, public response seems decidedly . . . anti?

Per Vulture, “[It] would render the symbolism of the Taylor’s versions null and void. In rewriting the narrative of her originals on her own terms—and rerecording songs at an older age, granting them more depth and perspective—Swift has managed to make her music increasingly valuable.”² Posts on various forums, Swift-related or adjacent, suggest similar; the point of TV was to make the original masters worthless, re-acquisition would immediately devalue them, not to mention it would be greedy. A capitalistic, artistically empty move.

I’ve always appreciated when artists are candid about what it feels like to be caught between art and industry, of standing before a creative vision with a bunch of suits behind you, waiting for the moment you find out what exactly it’ll cost to get you paid. So much of what I’ve explored in this newsletter has been in conversation with that tension, and my own struggles navigating it as a traditionally published author.³⁴

I remember discovering Marina’s Are You Satisfied? around the time my career was shifting from dream sequence to reality, which did not yet make it a nightmare, but gave the experience a texture no one prepares you for, instilling a sense of helplessness that is designed for language to falter against, and you know. Keep authors from forming unions. Anyway, it helped to hear songs that articulated this strangely isolating and destabilizing state. Repeat plays of Florence + the Machine’s Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up). Later, Mitski Working for the Knife . . .

still from Florence’s Raise It Up music video

I wouldn’t label myself a Swiftie by any stretch of imagination, but I enjoy enough of her music and find it resonates most when referencing the masters dispute, however transparently or obliquely. There’s an intensity there, an anger and hurt, that compels me, that I relate to and project on as an artist. The reactions it inspires compels me more. She’s rich, she got what she wanted. Can she just let it go?

This is not a defense of Swift, who I have no doubt will weather whatever response choosing to buy her masters back engenders, if that’s what she so chooses. She’s too powerful and privileged for that. But regardless of how you feel about her, I invite you to contemplate, with me, the complexities of wholeheartedly creating something, of sharing it in good faith, and then having it taken, stolen, sabotaged, or perverted or exploited by people who now stand to gain from their mistreatment and disrespect of you and your art.

What would that do to an artist’s sense of self and artistic worth? How would that impact their relationship with the art in question, and their art overall? We don’t often think of something like this as legitimately injurious and traumatizing, nor do we consider the impact of subsequent business and creative decisions being a response to that kind of creative wound. What it might feel like to continually operate under such a shadow, even when, by all external metrics of success, you’re winning. I think it’s worthwhile to consider a scenario like this less through the lens of professional retribution-turned-financial gain, and more through one of artistic and creative preservation. That preservation is and continues to be important, especially when factoring the ongoing threat and insult of AI to creative livelihoods, which repeatedly justifies itself by demanding we prove our worth.

What would you think, or what signal would it send, if she didn’t buy back her masters?

Much of the conversations I have with my friends and colleagues, who are also artists, are now defined by this sense of artistic preservation. I can tell you my own instinct has been dulled and now sharpened by all the things I learned the hard way. The more uncertain of and insecure in our position the industry keeps us, the more it prevents us from seeing our true worth, and from asking questions and making demands of our own in accordance to it.

When weighing our continued presence and participation within it, I ask what path preserves the art and our relationship to it? What path maintains the health and integrity of our selves, our process, and our vision? What path energizes and fuels it?⁵ Do not compromise in ways that will leave you less intact, artistically and professionally—which is not always obvious, but sometimes it is—and do not convince yourself there can still be a reward at the end of that kind of trade-off. There’s not. Trust me on that.

Preserve, persevere.

What Taylor Swift would do with her masters remains to be seen, and I’m sure will result in further analyses of her particular shades of capitalism—and those are fair angles to explore—but at the end of the day, I believe she should have them, and that having them would not null and void the successful experiment that has become Taylor’s Versions, but fit neatly into a personal and artistic narrative that only she, as its artist, can and was ever meant to determine the true value of.

---

explore my books: courtneysummers.ca
follow: instagram.com/summerscourtney

1. https://pagesix.com/2025/05/21/celebrity-news/taylor-swift-has-chance-to-buy-original-recordings-back/

2. https://www.vulture.com/article/taylor-swift-masters-for-sale.html

3. https://courtneysummers.substack.com/p/various-positions

4. https://courtneysummers.substack.com/p/stay-true

5. Next month, I will be sharing some exciting news about where that path has taken me. I hope you’ll stay tuned. 💚