For the past few months, Taylor Swift has been in an ongoing battle with record executives over the rights to her own music. As one of the music industry’s most prominent and celebrated figures, Taylor has been very open and vocal about the situation through her several social media platforms. Here’s a breakdown of the events.
In June of 2019, Scooter Braun’s company bought Big Machine Label Group for $300 million dollars. Big Machine was Swift’s former record label, which meant Braun was now the owner of Swift’s masters and albums from 2006’s Taylor Swift to 2017’s Reputation.
Swift reports having found out about the purchase along with the rest of the world. In a Tumblr post, she states “This is my worst case scenario,” “Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter.” Swift also claims in the post that she was never given the opportunity to buy the rights to her life’s work.
(Source: Variety)
On the label side of things, the founder of Big Machine, Scott Borchetta, responded to Swift by stating that she was contacted about the purchase and that since her father was a shareholder in Big Machine they were made aware.
Now a new hurdle has arrived for Taylor. On Nov. 14, Swift posted a statement on her several platforms revealing the fact that Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun are denying her the right to perform her old songs on television. This raises a problem for Taylor’s upcoming projects like the Netflix documentary centering Swift’s life and her American Music Awards performance in which she was named the Artist of the Decade.
Don’t know what else to do pic.twitter.com/1uBrXwviTS
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 14, 2019
In her post, Swift states “I just want to be able to perform MY OWN music.” She also asked her fans and other artists under Scooter’s label for help. This quickly led to celebrities taking sides and fans defending Taylor with the trending hashtag #IStandWithTaylor.
But it doesn’t end there. Big Machine released a statement the following day stating, “At no point did we say Taylor could not perform on the AMAs or block her Netflix special. In fact, we do not have the right to keep her from performing live anywhere.” However, the statement does not specify the blocking of her old music in the performance or Netflix special.
(Twitter: @taylorswift13)
In the days that followed, Big Machine tweeted a statement allowing Taylor to sing her old songs during her AMAs performance and “grant all licenses of their artists’ performances to stream post-show and for re-broadcast on mutually approved platforms.” Yet, the TV production company Dick Clark Productions never made such an agreement.
Lastly, Scooter Braun finally spoke up and released a statement post wanting to resolve the ongoing feud after receiving death threats. He states in the post that while disagreeing with Taylor’s statements she can perform whatever song she’d like at the AMAs. “You do not need anyone’s permission to do so legally but I am stating it here clearly and publicly so there is no more debate or confusion,” Braun said.
So after multiple back-and-forth statements from opposing sides, Taylor can sing the music she wrote on her bedroom floor. This isn’t the first time artists have fought over the rights to their music from record labels. Yet, Taylor did so publicly. As she stated in her post, she felt the need to share her situation in order to “change the awareness level for other artists and potentially help them avoid a similar fate.” What do you think, should Taylor have opened this dispute to the public?
Source: https://www.thecut.com/2019/11/taylor-swift-scooter-braun-justin-bieber-feud-explained.html