Taylor Swift and Her Fight For Her Masters

By: ​Kiana Maria

     Between sold-out concerts and several awards to match, Taylor Swift is a global phenomenon that has taken the world by storm. However, the Cardigan singer has been facing some real hardships this week. It was reported on Monday, November 16th, 2020 that Scooter Braun, a music executive with whom she has long had issues, sold her masters for $300 million. This is a strenuous tale of how people can easily take your work without your knowledge.
    

Finding out your art has been sold is being controlled by someone you don’t associate with is never a good feeling. Learning that your music has been sold again to someone else is even more heartbreaking. In a Tweet, she stated that Shamrock Holding, “had bought 100% of my music, videos and album art from Scooter Braun”. She also stated, “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.” The letter she is referring to is the letter that was sent by Shamrock Holding. She continued to say that under their terms, Scooter Braun will still be able to profit off of her past albums. The albums under this contract do not include Lover, and Folklore, since they were released by Universal Music Group. 

    In the same Tweet mentioned above, Taylor Swift mentioned that she was willing to go into negotiations with him. His terms included Taylor Swift signing an NDA, (a document where she would have to never say a negative thing about him, and that’s without seeing the actual financial records.) She further explained that seeing the records usually come first in an NDA, and even stating that her legal team has never seen such a document and that usually this type of NDA was written to pay off a victim of assault to try and silence them. Taylor didn’t go through with the document, so it led to Scooter Braun selling it to Shamrock Holding. 

    This issue has been going on since last year, and there doesn’t seem to be a concrete solution for Taylor, except for one. She hinted in her Tweet that she is going to continue re-recording her music, and has some amazing things in store for her fans. She has persevered through this entire mess, and there is still hope for all those Swifties out there for her to still gain her music back. Until she gains her music back, we’ve still got Folklore to still indulge in. 

Sources:
https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/1328471874318311425/photo/2
https://www.nme.com/news/music/scooter-braun-reportedly-sells-taylor-swifts-big-machine-masters-2818109


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