It's no secret that the music industry is seemingly corrupt. Unhappy artists have made that fact known for years. There have also been countless artists along the way that have had nothing but wonderful things to say about their record companies. The problem lies in individuals that are worried more about money and power than the rights of their artists.
Recently, Scott Borchetta sold Big Machine Records to Scooter Braun's company, Ithaca Holdings, for a sum of $300 million. Included in that deal were the rights to the masters to all six of Taylor Swift's previous albums. Just to be clear, Taylor did have the opportunity to stay at Big Machine and obtain the masters to her music, but she chose to go to another label when her 10-year deal was up. If she had signed another deal with Big Machine, she would have "earned" back the rights to one of her old albums every time she released a new one. She knew that if she stayed, Borchetta would sell the label anyway, so she decided to leave with the hope and relief that her future music would be her own.
Taylor made a statement regarding the Big Machine/Scooter Braun situation. Braun and Swift have had their issues. Scooter Braun was Kanye West's manager during the 2016 feud between Kanye, Taylor, and Kim Kardashian. That feud resulted in several blows at Taylor, and it even caused her to step out of the spotlight for a while. Justin Beiber posted a picture on Instagram of him face timing Kanye and Scooter in which they were laughing. The caption said, "Taylor Swift what up." Regardless of how you feel about Taylor Swift, you can't blame her for not wanting Braun to own her music.
In her Tumblr post, Swift describes the music as "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." Everyone that was a Taylor Swift fan in the early 2000s remembers the curly headed fifteen-year-old girl that became America's sweetheart. She was a hopeful, excited kid that probably never dreamed that the music that she wrote from her heart would someday not belong to her.
Swift went on to say in her post, "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 he says 'Music has value', he means its value is beholden to the men who had no part in creating it."
She knew Big Machine would sell. She knew that her music would be in someone's hands other than Scott Borchetta. She never imagined it would be someone who tried to sabotage her. "Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it."
There has been backlash from several people, including Scott Borchetta and Yael Braun. Everyone seems to bash Taylor for her statement regarding the possible contract renewal with Big Machine. She isn't complaining about not signing that deal; she knows that "earning back" something that should've been hers from the beginning wasn't the path she wanted to go down. She isn't even complaining about not owning her masters. In her post, she says that she had come to terms with the fact that someone else would eventually own it. She is disgusted that her past work lies in Scooter Braun's hands.
Swift's future music through Republic Records is all her own. She says she will always be proud of her past work, as she should be. No matter how you feel about Taylor Swift, her situation should be a warning for all future musicians to make sure they are entrusting their art into the hands of the right people. The music industry isn't the problem. People are the problem.
