Anita Baker commemorated regaining ownership of her masters in a big way on Sept. 3 by giving her legions of fans permission to stream her music.
Baker first announced the news earlier in the day by posting a photo of five of her albums, including “The Songstress,” “Giving You the Best That I’ve Got,” “Rhythm of Love,” “Rapture,” and “Compositions.” All of these records shown in the image were released between 1983 and 1994.
Alongside the photo the 63-year-old wrote, “All My Children Are Coming Home. Catalog. Impossible Things Happen… Every. Single. Day. Gratefully.” In addition to the “Sweet Love” vocalist’s announcement, she further confirmed the news in an exchange with a Twitter user who asked if they “were in the clear” to stream her music. Baker responded, “Yes. Chil’ren…. STREAM. ON ABXO.”
This celebration comes after the legendary singer took to social media to proclaims she was in the process of requesting the music copyrights be reverted back to her. As she made this announcement Baker asked her fans to stop streaming her music.
As Baker’s fresh news about her copyrights spread like wildfire on social media, many couldn’t help but rejoice as they took back their housecleaning music. Several of them claimed they haven’t been the same since the initial strike, while others cheered as the apparent battle has now come to an end.
“Saturdays morning haven’t been the same, thank you queen!”
“We now have permission to deep clean our house. Thanks Auntie 😍.”
“Thank God!!! My house ain’t been right since this started.”
“Yesssss FINALLY!!! Happy for her!!!“
“ALEXA PLAY SWEET LOVE.”
Back in March, Baker took to Twitter to inform her followers that she had outlived her artist’s contracts and because of that she expected to fight executives — presumably at Warner Music Group, which released several of her albums, including her 1986 quintuple-platinum “Rapture” — to regain ownership of her masters. She wrote, “Miraculously… I have out-lived all of my artist’s contracts. They no longer “own” my name and likeness. And, by law…30- year-old masters are to be returned to me. Unfortunately, they’re gonna make me fight for it. I’m prepared, to do that. Please don’t advertise/buy them.”
According to Section 203 of the Copyright Act, in which the singer referenced in her tweet, the law states that 35 years after a said artist has signed away their rights to a copyrighted work, the individual can legally file to reclaim them. At the time of the legal battle five of Baker’s seven studio albums were under 35 years old.
