Scooter Braun Sold Taylor Swift’s Masters For $300 Million Without Her Knowing
Published
Scooter Braun sold Taylor Swift’s masters for $300 million without her knowledge.
The Folklore artist has been embroiled in a long battle to regain ownership of her master recordings, earlier accusing Braun and Big Machine Label Group’s founder Scott Borchetta of ‘exercising tyrannical control’ over her.
Earlier in September, Kanye West even vowed to help the singer get her masters back. However, the rights to her music have been sold to another buyer – without Swift knowing.
The Grammy-winner took to Twitter to explain how Braun had sold off ‘100% of [her] music’ despite refusing to quote Swift’s team a price on the masters.
Swift explained, ‘A few weeks ago my team received a letter from a private equity company called Shamrock Holdings, letting us know they had bought 100% of my music, videos and album art from Scooter Braun.’
She continued:
This was the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge. The letter told me that they wanted to reach out before the sale to let me know, but that Scooter Braun had required that they make no contact with me or my team, or the deal would be off.
As soon as we started communication with Shamrock, I learned that under their terms Scooter Braun will continue to profit off my old musical catalog for many years. I was hopeful and open to the possibility of a partnership with Shamrock, but Scooter’s participation is a non-starter for me.
Following Braun’s $300 million acquisition of the group, including all of Swift’s records, she was barred from performing old songs without following specific ‘rules’. In an earlier emotional Tumblr post, she wrote, ‘Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy.’
In a letter to Shamrock Holdings, the artist wrote:
I simply cannot in good conscience bring myself to be involved with benefiting Scooter Braun’s interests directly or indirectly. As a result, I cannot currently entertain being partners with you.
It’s a shame to know that I will now be unable to help grow the future of these past works and it pains me very deeply to remain separated from the music I spent over a decade creating, but this is a sacrifice I will have to make to keep Scooter Braun out of my life. I’m very sorry he has put you in this position.
On November 1, Swift was legally free to begin rerecording her old songs. ‘I has already proven to be exciting and creatively fulfilling. I have plenty of surprises in store… I can’t wait for you to hear what I’ve been dreaming up.’
In her letter to Shamrock, Swift was also open about her rerecording schedule, acknowledging that it will diminish the value of her masters but explaining, ‘This is my only way of regaining the sense of pride I once had when hearing songs from my first six albums and also allowing my fans to listen… without feelings of guilt for benefitting Scooter.’
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Topics: News, Music, Now, Scooter Braun, Taylor Swift
Credits
Taylor Swift/Twitter and 1 otherTaylor Swift/Twitter
Taylor Swift/Tumblr
