Taylor Swift
Earlier this morning, Big Machine Label Group announced it was being acquired by Scooter Braun‘s Ithaca Holdings. This deal includes the rights to Taylor Swift‘s entire back catalog, as Swift signed with BMLG and its owner Scott Borchetta as a teen. Hours later, Swift publicly reacted to the news in an online post, calling the deal her “worst case scenario.”
Swift wrote, “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. 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.”
She added, “I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world. All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years.”
Swift went on to say Braun was involved in the issues between her, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West surrounding the rapper’s “Famous” video. She continued, “This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value,’ he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.”
Swift added, “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.”
The music superstar signed a new deal last year with Universal Music Group following the end of her deal with BMLG and ended her post, “Thankfully, I am now signed to a label that believes I should own anything I create. Thankfully, I left my past in Scott’s hands and not my future. And hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation. You deserve to own the art you make.”
Billboard reports that Swift’s camp was informed of the deal last Tuesday, as her father owns approximately a four percent share of BMLG and was part of a shareholders’ meeting about the acquisition. Braun will be buying out all shareholders as part of the deal.
Swift’s entire post can be read on her Tumblr here.
