Taylor Swift is losing the rights to her first six albums and she is hardly alone

Taylor Swift Paints Scooter Braun as Manipulative Bully as Big Machine Sells Her Catalog

Swift is losing the rights to her first six albums, thanks to a deal announced Sunday by Ithaca Holdings. From 2006's self-titled debut to 2017's "Reputation," Swift was with country-pop record company Big Machine Label Group. That company has been acquired by Ithaca, which is owned by Scooter Braun, a manager, and businessman who represents pop stars' Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Carly Rae Jepsen.

The 29-year-old Swift is fuming. In a Tumblr post, she wrote, "For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work."
Taylor Swift has described herself as “sad and grossed out” by Scooter Braun’s acquisition of Big Machine Records, which holds the rights to her entire catalog up through 2017’s “Reputation,” calling the deal “my worst case scenario.” Swift said she was shocked to first learn of the transfer of her work through news accounts Sunday morning. Braun declined requests for comment.

Swift posted her impassioned reaction in a Tumblr post, which reads:

“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. I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.

“Some fun facts about today’s news: I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world. All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years.

“Like when Kim Kardashian orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it. (See photo) Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.

“This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.

“When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually, he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.



“Thankfully, I am now signed to a label that believes I should own anything I create. Thankfully, I left my past in Scott’s hands and not my future. And hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation. You deserve to own the art you make.

“I will always be proud of my past work. But for a healthier option, ‘Lover’ [Swift’s first album through her new deal with Universal Music Group] will be out August 23.

“Sad and grossed out,


When it comes to artists losing the rights to their songs, Taylor Swift is hardly alone!
Artists often have a tortured relationship with the industry-

Swift isn't the first entertainer to lose ownership of the original art her fans adore, and she certainly won't be the last.

George Clinton fought to win back the rights to his master recordings.

George Clinton, whose funk outfit Parliament Funkadelic was one of the most well-known musical acts of the late 20th century, had to stage a protracted legal fight to win back the rights to his master recordings.

And besides legal and business hurdles, acts of God may keep masters out of musicians' hands. Last month, the New York Times Magazine published a report on a little-known 2008 fire at a Universal Music warehouse that destroyed masters from dozens of artists such as BB King and Nirvana.

Some musicians are staking out new ground outside the traditional structure.

After gaining early fame online, Chance the Rapper said he'll "stick with SoundCloud until the day I die," forgoing a record label so that he retains the rights to his music. He became the first streaming artist to be nominated for a Grammy in 2016, garnering Best Rap Album honors for "Coloring Book" and Best Rap Performance for "No Problem."

Swift could reclaim her music rights, but it would take decades

And though it might feel like Swift and her old music are never, ever getting back together, she has longer-term options.

The US Copyright Act of 1976 allows artists to terminate copyright transfers 35 years after a copyright deal was originally inked. Congress included the provision as an artist's "second chance" to regain music rights if they felt that they "made a disadvantageous first deal," according to the NYU Law Review.

More than three decades after it was enacted, the law creates a slow drip by which record companies gradually lose rights to their back catalogs. Each year, the threshold creeps forward. This year, artists who composed works released in 1984 can exercise their option to win back rights.

Paul McCartney, still smarting over the loss of rights to the Beatles' catalog to Michael Jackson, is eager to use these termination rights to get his rights back. The entirety of the Beatles' creative output was released before the 1976 law shortened the time frame for artists to regain their rights, so McCartney is only now getting his chance.

Paul McCartney is trying to win back his rights to the Beatles' songs.

McCartney's troubles started when Jackson purchased the ATV Music catalog for $47.5 million in 1985, including the rights to songs co-written by McCartney and John Lennon, as well as music by Bruce Springsteen, Elvis, and the Rolling Stones. The warm friendship between McCartney and Jackson went helter-skelter.

As the Lennon-McCartney catalog from the Beatles' years began closing in on their eligibility window, 56 years after their original release, McCartney plotted a strategy to reclaim them. In 2015, per copyright law, McCartney began writing letters to the US Copyright Office, informing it that he wanted to obtain rights to the music.

The copyright on most Beatles' songs carries a termination date in October 2025. (He would receive income from only his half of the song, with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, allowing Sony/ATV to retain its publisher's share.)

McCartney's journey to re-ownership has been a long and winding road, but it's one that artists in Swift's position can keep in mind.

Poking the bear

In 1993, during a contractual fight with his record label, Warner Bros., Prince changed his name to a symbol that looked like a combination of the symbols for male and female. Referring to himself as a symbol didn't give him the chance to distribute music outside his Warner Bros. contract, but it did give The Artist Formerly Known as Prince as a great way to annoy his corporate overlords.

Prince even changed his name during his fight with Warner Bros.

He changed his name back to Prince in 2000 after his publishing contract with Warner Bros. expired.