Saoirse Ronan has compared Taylor Swift to Louisa May Alcott.
The 25-year-old actress is currently starring as Alcott’s heroine Jo March in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of ‘Little Women’ and Saoirse says that Alcott’s battle for the right to publish her books as her own is similar to Taylor’s fight to own the master recordings of her own music.
Speaking on ITV’s ‘This Morning’, Saoirse said: "There’s such a thing right now, Taylor Swift just released an album and it’s the first album she’s ever owned. None of her other music belongs to her."
Speaking about her character Jo’s decision to fight for her own copyright in the movie, Saoirse revealed it was a tribute to the "revolutionary" Alcott.
She explained: "The fact that Louisa May Alcott, 150 years ago, knew to fight for her copyright is really revolutionary. We really wanted to use this opportunity to honour her; this woman who knew to fight for her work."
Taylor, 30, became embroiled in a feud with her former label boss Scott Borchetta earlier this year after he sold Big Machine records to Scooter Braun, who gained the rights to all of Taylor’s music that had been recorded under the label.
Taylor claimed at the time she had never been given the opportunity to buy her own music herself, and recently said she was "denied" the chance to own her own recordings.
She said: "I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity, and I just don’t want that to happen to another artist if I can help it. I want to at least raise my hand and say, ‘This is something that an artist should be able to earn back over the course of their deal – not as a renegotiation ploy – and something that artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.’
"God, I would have paid so much for them! Anything to own my work that was an actual sale option, but it wasn’t given to me."
Although she can’t buy her masters back, the ‘ME!’ hitmaker still has some "power" with her old music, as she is the person who wrote the tracks and Taylor plans to re-record her first six albums again next year, so that she can own her own versions of the songs.
Saoirse Ronan compares Taylor Swift to Louisa May Alcott
