Taylor Swift is officially the biggest artist of the decade and is in the top 10 on Billboard’s
list of greatest artists of all time. So I would expect that the industry people would
treat her like such a big artist should be treated. But she still doesn’t have the
rights to songs from her five albums, and we have another part of the drama between
Taylor and her previous record label now owned by Scooter Braun. And honestly, at this point,
everything is a little bit confusing. Who is in the right? Which celebs supported Taylor?
Stay with me for a recap of the Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun drama and decide which side
is telling the truth. So I need to do a throwback because this whole
Taylor and Scooter thing started back in July. That’s when Taylor on her Tumblr reacted
to the news that Braun had bought the Big Machine record label where the singer started
her career as a country star. So now Braun owns the masters to all six of Taylor’s
albums, which means that he makes money off every stream or purchase of any song Taylor
had released until 2017. Now, when the news about Scooter acquiring the label broke, Taylor
wrote a blog post explaining her situation. She revealed that for years she tried to gain
the rights to her art back but all she was offered was another deal with the label and
earning one album back for every new one she released.
Taylor said that Braun owning her music was her worst case scenario because he is a manipulative
bully. She’s talking about that massive drama that went down between her and Kim Kardashian
and Kanye West after his song Famous was released. If you don’t remember, it included misogynistic
lyrics about Taylor and a nude wax figure of her was used in the music video. There
were also some leaked phone calls and snake emojis involved. Well, at the time of that
drama Scooter was Kanye’s manager and was involved in the making of the Famous video.
So can you see why she just doesn’t want to be associated with Braun?
But now Taylor’s battle with Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta, the founder and CEO of
the Big Machine Label Group reached a new level. The singer took to her social media
to write a message to her followers ahead of her performance at the 2019 American Music
Awards where she will receive the Artist of the Decade Award. Did you know that she’s
won more AMAs than anyone this decade? And as she got 5 nominations this year, she has
the chance to break Michael Jackson’s record for most wins, who owned 24 awards. And Taylor’s
no stranger to breaking records because last year she made history as the female artist
with the most AMAs wins, surpassing Whitney Houston.
For the occasion of this year’s ceremony, Taylor was planning to perform a medley of
all of her hit songs. But there’s one big problem. She doesn’t know “what else to
do.” That’s how she captioned the post that she wrote to her fans in which she described
the situation she’s in. So Taylor claims that Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun said
that she wasn’t allowed to perform her old songs on television because, according to
them, that would be re-recording of her music before she’s legally allowed to next year.
Besides that, Taylor was forced to reveal, and this wasn’t how she planned on telling
her fans, that Netflix had created a documentary about her life for the past few years. She
said that Scott and Scooter had rejected the use of her older music or footage of performances
for that project even though there’s no mention of either of them or of Big Machine
Records anywhere in the movie. That’s not all because Borchetta told Taylor’s team
that they’ll let her use her music only if she does the following things. The first
thing was that the singer had to agree to not re-record the copy versions of her songs
next year. And that by the way is something she’s legally allowed to do, and something
she’s looking forward to. Another thing was that they needed Taylor
to stop talking about them. Because of that, she thought that sharing what was happening
to her could change something for other artists and maybe help them avoid being in a similar
situation. She also felt like the message that was sent her way was “be a good little
girl and shut up” or you’ll be punished. This definitely is wrong. Neither of these
men in no way contributed to the writing of those songs. They weren’t the 14 year old
Taylor who wrote most of these lyrics in her bedroom and they did nothing to create the
relationship Taylor has with her fans. That’s why Taylor knew she could ask her
army of Swifties for help. She asked her fans to let Scott and Scooter know how they felt
about this whole situation. She didn’t have to wait long because soon #IStandWithTaylor
started trending on twitter. Taylor even mentioned the artists who Scooter manages and who apparently
cared about the treatment of fellow musicians. She hoped they could help by sharing their
thoughts. Yes, this is about you, Ariana and Demi. I’m not gonna mention Justin Bieber
because we know he sides with Scooter. At the end, Taylor added that all she wanted
was to be able to perform her own music. She said she’d tried to resolve this issue privately
through her team but it didn’t work out. Is this really how it was? I’ll tell you
in a moment Just like she asked, Taylor got the support
of her famous friends. Obviously, Selena Gomez took to Instagram to write a long post defending
her best friend while not caring about possible consequences. She said that in her opinion
it was greed, manipulation and power and the lack of respect for the words her friend had
written since she was 14 years old. Also, Camilla Cabello wrote a post in which she
said that it felt heartbreaking that the world was being robbed of something important when
Taylor couldn’t sing her life’s work. Other artists who supported Taylor were Halsey,
Brendon Urie and his wife, Todrick Hall who used to be managed by Scooter and the member
of Taylor’s girl squad, Gigi Hadid. Do you think that the support coming from all these
celebrities can change something in Taylor’s case?
While Taylor fearlessly stood up to these industry men, Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta
wouldn’t give up so easily. That’s because later the Big Machine Label Group released
their side of the story and they basically implied that Taylor is a liar. They said that
her statements were based on false information and they never said that that she couldn’t
perform at the American Music Awards and they didn’t block her Netflix special because
they don’t have the right to keep her from performing anywhere. And look at this! They
said that they’re not stopping her from performing ANYWHERE instead of saying for
instance “we never said you couldn’t perform your old songs.” Are they trying to be sneaky?
WHAT are they trying to hide? Anyway, the statement then says that since
Taylor’s decision to leave Big Machine last fall, the label has been following her requests
to give a licence to her catalog to third parties as she promotes her current album
Lover. By the way, they don’t have any income from it because this album was released through
her new label. Then Big Machine’s statement accused the singer of owing millions of dollars
and multiple assets to the company. And as TMZ had reported, apparently Taylor owes them
$7 million. What’s more, the company claims that they’ve been trying to meet with her
privately in order to solve the situation in some way but instead Taylor made the decision
to involve her fanbase what apparently was a calculated move that was a danger for their
employees and their families. At the end of the statement, Big Machine said
that the narrative Taylor created just didn’t exist and all they asked for is a direct and
honest conversation. And when that happens, she will see that they have nothing but respect,
kindness and support waiting for her. As they claim, up until now not one invitation to
speak and work with them through this has been accepted. I’m so confused at this point.
What is the truth here?! As if that wasn’t confusing enough, Taylor’s
representative released a new statement to fire back at the statement from Big Machine.
This is too much but let’s get into this. So Taylor’s rep revealed a message that
was sent to her team on October 28 by the Vice President, Rights Management and Business
Affairs from Big Machine Label Group. It literally said that the label wouldn’t agree to “issue
licenses for existing recordings or waivers of its re-recording restrictions” in connection
to these two projects: the Netflix documentary and the Double Eleven event in China. Well…
that’s interesting. The rep then clarified the message and called
out the label’s lies. So to avoid any arguments over rights, at the Double Eleven event Taylor
performed 3 songs off her new album Lover because the label felt that any live performance
of catalog songs violated the agreement. The rep later said that just the other day Scott
Borchetta denied the request for both American Music Awards and Netflix. And in their statement,
Big Machine never denied the claims Taylor made in her post. They just wanted to make
this about money by saying that she owed them but in fact, it’s been determined that they
owed Taylor nearly $8 million of unpaid royalties over a few years. Alright, this is a mess!
Do you think what Taylor’s representative revealed is true?
This is what happened in the Taylor Swift vs Big Machine battle so far. And now there
have been reports that Scooter Braun is pretty annoyed with Scott Borchetta. Why? It’s
because he’s not happy with the way Scott handles things related to Taylor and her music
catalog. Scooter doesn’t run Big Machine or have operational control of the company
so he hadn’t taken part in these negotiations and his name is still being dragged. What
is more, an insider claims that Braun has been trying to reach the singer but she hasn’t
returned his calls. And he claims that the fight with Taylor is something he doesn’t
agree with. He’s quite changed his tone since July. Do you believe in Scooter’s
good intentions? One more thing. What does the situation with
Taylor re-recording her songs look like? While talking about the release of her seventh studio
album Lover, Taylor said that this album was really special to her because it’s the first
one that she would own. She also confirmed that her contract says that starting November
2020 she can record the albums one to five all over again and she’s very excited about
it. Are you also excited that Taylor Swift will
be able to re-record her music? Who do you think is telling the truth in this battle?
Do you believe that Taylor has been wronged or is she just playing the victim? Let's talk
about it in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel to stay up to
date with CurioSips! See you next time!