Taylor Swift harbored a lot of anger after Scooter Braun purchased the master copies to her music library, and apparently, she now has a plan to get it back.
The singer has confirmed that she will re-record her earlier songs that were purchased by Braun in a $300 million deal to purchase Big Machine Records, her original label. Taylor publicly lashed out at Braun, who she accused of bullying for orchestrating the very public feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian that she called a low point of her career.
As Hollywood Life reported, Taylor confirmed in a yet-to-be-aired interview that she plans to re-record the songs from her first six albums on her own. If she can pull it off, it would mean that Taylor has control over all of her music again, as her seventh album, Lover, was released under Universal under an agreement that gives Taylor all of her masters.
The process will not be too easy, Hollywood Life noted. The report cited Los Angeles entertainment lawyer Gary Stiffelman, who noted that re-recording masters is not a simple process and has some complications.
“Typically recording contracts [say] that the artist cannot rerecord any of the songs that they recorded and delivered to their record label for a certain period of time…like five years from the time the album came out, but no sooner than two years after the end of their contract term,” he said.
Stiffelman noted that Taylor Swift is in a somewhat unique position in that she also writes her music, meaning that she already holds the copyright to the underlying musical compositions. That means Scooter Braun still would not be able to use Taylor’s music in commercial ventures like movies or television shows without getting Taylor to sign off on it as well.
There has been plenty of drama surrounding Braun’s purchase of Big Machine Records and Taylor’s reaction to it. While many of Taylor’s famous friends backed her, a number of Scooter Braun’s clients also stood behind the music executive, including Justin Bieber. In her Tumblr post calling out Braun, Taylor accused him of teaming up with Bieber to bully her in the wake of the Kanye West drama, to which Justin apologized for in his statement while also saying that Taylor was unfairly attacking Scooter.
#StellaxTaylorSwift ? It’s been SO fun to dream up cute stuff with @StellaMcCartney to create a line inspired by my new album. Can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on at the @YouTube Live on 8/22 at 5p ET! More info at https://t.co/zv4KOzZAvB + https://t.co/JdABzXWRu0 pic.twitter.com/OWbMRrGglx
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 20, 2019
Amid the drama, Taylor Swift has been pushing forward with her own career, releasing her new album and announcing a new fashion partnership with Stella McCartney.
