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Taylor Swift Called Out Scooter Braun During Her Speech at Billboard's Women in Music Event


But Swift saved some of her harshest words for Braun, who acquired the rights to her masters when he purchased her former record label with backing from a private equity firm. “As your resident loud person, I feel the need to bring it up. That is the unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying up our music as if it is real estate, as if it’s an app or a shoe line. This just happened to me without my approval, consultation or consent,” she said. “After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalogue was sold to Scoter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I’m told was funded by the Soros Family, 23 Capital and the Carlyle Group. Yet to this day, none of these investors have bothered to contact me or my team directly to perform their due diligence on their investment. On their investment in me, to ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art. The music I wrote. The videos I created. Photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs.”

“Of course, Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced. I’m fairly certain he knew how I would feel about it, though. Let me just say that the definition of the toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying, ‘Well, he’s always been nice to me’ when I’m raising valid concerns about artists and their rights to own their music,” she continued. “Of course he’s nice to you. If you’re in this room you have something he needs.”

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She continued, “The fact is that private equity enabled this man to think, according to his own social media post, that he could ‘buy me.’ I’m obviously not going willingly. Yet the most amazing thing was to discover that it would be the women in our industry who would have my back and show me the most vocal support at one of the most difficult times and I will never, ever forget it. Like ever.”

Well, that’s indeed one powerful way to kick off your 30th year, Tay. We’re impressed.



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Taylor Swift Says She's Re-Recording All Her Old Music in Light of the Scooter Braun Drama


In late June, news broke that Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, had acquired Taylor Swift’s back catalog of music as part of his purchase of Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Label Group. (Big Machine was Swift’s old label.) Pretty much everyone, from Halsey to Todrick Hall to Justin Bieber, had something to say about the situation, and voices on social media (including Kelly Clarkson) even urged her to consider the biggest power move possible: re-recording her entire catalogue.

And it turns out that’s exactly what Swift has decided to do. A short transcript from her recent appearance on CBS Sunday Morning reveals that the pop star is planning to head back to the studio and create brand new masters of all the songs that Braun now owns. Here’s exactly what she said when correspondent Tracy Smith asked her if she was going to re-record everything.

“Might you do that?” Smith asks.

“Oh yeah,” Swift says.

“That’s a plan?” Smith asks.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Swift answers.

As a recap, the whole drama started when Big Machine Records—the Scott Borchetta-owned label that Swift was on for a bulk of her career—was acquired by Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings. In a Tumblr post, Swift insisted that she didn’t know about the sale until it was announced and that she wasn’t given the chance to buy her music. She also expressed her frustration that the songs she’d worked so hard on were now owned by someone she says had subjected her to “incessant, manipulative bullying.”

“When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter,” she wrote. “Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”

It’s unclear when Taylor Swift is going to start this project, but it’s going to be a huge undertaking. It comes right as her seventh studio album, Lover, is scheduled to drop on August 23. The full CBS interview will be out on August 25.



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Scooter Braun Acquired Taylor Swift's Back Catalogue. But What Does That Really Mean?


Erin M. Jacobson, a music transactional attorney in Beverly Hills who also wasn’t involved in the sale, says acquisitions of this nature occur regularly. As Jacobson explains, the seller—in this case, Borchetta—stands to make a profit upfront from the sale, while the buyer—Braun, who reportedly paid over $300 million for Big Machine—earns profit over time from acquiring ownership of the assets. Because of that, “The buyer is usually obligated to follow the terms of the purchased company’s existing contracts, meaning that Ithaca Holdings would now be responsible for collecting all earnings of the masters and paying Swift her contractual royalties.”

Taylor Swift performs onstage during the 2018 Reputation stadium tour. The album is part of her back catalogue that now belongs to Scooter Braun’s company.John Shearer/TAS18/Getty Images for TAS

Jacobson says it’s common for a label to own the masters, like Swift’s initial contract with Big Machine. “Record labels traditionally own the master recordings, and usually the artists do not have legal recourse.”

But Valentino believes there could be deeper conflicts at play here. Because Swift was negotiating with Big Machine to earn back her master recordings, as she said in her Tumblr post, there could have been other potential deals—like buyers Swift and her team were championing—that fell through, he explains. “Maybe they felt slighted in that it went to Scooter; they might have wanted it to go somewhere else and were angry that happened,” Valentino says. “I can tell you as a lawyer, there’s always more to it than we read about.”

As a part of her new deal with Universal Music Group, Swift now owns her masters and licenses for any new music released by Universal going forward. However, Jacobson says, unestablished artists—like Swift was at the start of her career—rarely have the clout or pull to retain ownership over the masters. Lou Hayat, one half of the indie rock duo The Dove And The Wolf, says these arrangements are still indicative of where the music industry stands—and Braun’s purchase over Big Machine is just another facet of the business. “While this might be an extreme case of industry-man-on-a-power-trip to control, manipulate, or bully an artist, it is unfortunately still very representative of how the music industry functions,” Hayat says. “Regardless of what people may think of Taylor Swift, I think her speaking up about this is very important and necessary.”



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Taylor Swift on Scooter Braun's Purchase of Her Back Catalog: 'This Is My Worst Cast Scenario'


On Sunday, June 30, news broke that Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, has acquired Taylor Swift’s back catalog of music as part of his purchase of Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Label Group. (Swift used to be one of the artists on Big Machine’s roster.) This wasn’t good news to Swift, who responded to the announcement with a Tumblr post.

“For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in,” she writes. “I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.”

She goes on to explain that she only learned of the sale as the news broke widely, adding, “All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years.”

Swift continues: “Like when Kim Kardashian [allegedly] orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter [allegedly] got his two clients together to bully me online about it… Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.”

“This is my worst case scenario,” she says, later adding, “… When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”

You can read her full post on Tumblr.

Many took to Twitter in support of Swift after she posted on Tumblr, and #WeStandWithTaylor began to trend. “This is far from the first time a man has claimed ownership of a woman’s work and it sure won’t be the last, but the fact that someone of Taylor Swift’s stature STILL has to deal with this all-too-familiar male behavior is terrifying,” one user writes

“I’m tweeting for the first time in a year to say that Taylor Swift deserves better,” says another. “She’s a self made woman whose worked hard for everything she has, investing love, time and effort in a career she absolutely deserves. #WeStandWithTaylor”

Halsey also joined the conversation, writing on Twitter, “Taylor Swift is a huge reason why I always insisted to write my own music. I believed if she did it (in a way that made my teeth ache like cold water and my heart swell and my eyes leak) than I should too. Cause that’s how to make someone feel. To drag it from the pits of your heart. To offer it on a platter and say ‘take some but take it kindly.'”





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