Taylor Swift’s fans kicked off the month of November on a hopeful note – this month marks when the songstress is reportedly free to re-record her first five albums. However, it seems the drama over her old masters is far from over.
On Monday (November 16), Variety reported that Scooter had sold the rights to Taylor’s masters from her time with her old label, Big Machine Records, which include her first six albums – Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation – for a reported $300 Million.
That same day, Taylor went on Twitter to speak out on the matter in a note to her fans, where she claims that her team had been trying to get into negotiations with Scooter for the said masters. However, Taylor says he wanted her to sign an “ironclad NDA” stating that she would never say another word about him unless it was positive before they could even begin discussions.
“So I would have to sign a document that would silence me forever before I could even have a chance to bid on my own work,” she wrote. “My legal team said that this is absolutely NOT normal, and they’ve never seen an NDA like this presented unless it was to silence an assault accuser by paying them off. He would never even quote my team a price. These master recordings were not for sale to me.”
She also claims that the company that bought her masters, Shamrock Holdings, had said they wanted to reach out to her before the sale, but were expressly forbidden to do so by Scooter’s team “or the deal was off.”
However, she says that through their communication, she learned that Scooter would still continue to profit from her old music catalog “for many years,” which made it impossible for her to partner with them.
“I was hopeful and open to the possibility of a partnership with Shamrock, but Scooter’s participation is a non-starter for me,” she wrote.
She also included the letter she sent Shamrock Holdings, where she also told them, “I simply cannot in good conscience bring myself to be involved in benefiting Scooter Braun’s interests directly or indirectly. As a result, I cannot currently entertain being partners with you.”
ICYMI, back in July 2019, Taylor and Scooter Braun got into a very public feud after Scooter bought the rights to her old records, among many others, as part of a business deal with Taylor’s old label, Big Machine Records. She also said that she only found out about the deal when it was online and that she wasn’t given a chance to buy her music – something Big Machine Label officials have disputed.
“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 wrote in part in a Tumblr post at the time. “I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future.”
Taylor had previously publicly shared her plans to re-record her old masters – an unprecedented move that could potentially impact music rights ownership in the industry, as well as potentially undercut any future profits that could be gained off of the original masters.
“My contract says that starting November 2020, so next year, I can record albums one through five all over again, so I’m very excited about it,” she said on Good Morning America during an appearance to promote her seventh album Lover. “I just think that artists deserve to own their work. I just feel very passionately about that.”
In her note to fans, she also confirmed that she had begun re-recording her older music, calling it an “exciting and creatively fulfilling” endeavor.
Scooter’s rep is yet to respond to requests for comment.
