*Speak Now*! Taylor Swift Responds To Scooter Braun Selling Her Masters
Singer Taylor Swift has spoken out after the news of Scooter Braun selling her masters for $300 million broke earlier in the day.
Braun got control of Swift’s old music when his company Ithaca Holdings bought Big Machine Label Group in 2019.
The 30-year-old hitmaker shared a lengthy statement on Twitter to explain to her fans how she had attempted over the past year to "enter into negotiations" with Braun to buy her work back. However, the "Love Story" singer would have had to sign an "ironclad NDA," which would force her to only say positive things about Braun before she could look at Big Machine's financial records.
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"So, I would have had to sign a document that would silence me forever before I could even have a chance to bid on my own work," Swift said, which according to her legal team was "absolutely NOT normal."
She added that Braun "would never even quote my team a price. These master recordings were not for sale to me."
A private company called Shamrock Holdings purchased the masters from Braun, but despite the sale, the blonde beauty explained that Ithaca Holdings would still profit off from the old music for "many years."
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The new owner of her catalog reached out to Swift last month to work together, but she wrote back and declined the invitation. Swift said that she "simply cannot in good conscience bring myself to be involved in benefitting Scooter Braun's interests directly or indirectly."
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"As a result, I cannot currently entertain being partners with you," she wrote in October. "It's a shame to know that I will now be unable to help grow the future of these past works and it pains me very deeply to remain separated from the music I spent over a decade creating, but this is a sacrifice I will have to make to keep Scooter Braun out of my life."
As of Sunday, November 1, Swift is legally allowed to re-record her first five albums, which she is in the process of doing, and it's "already proven to be both exciting and creatively fulfilling."
The pop icon has been trying to own her own music for several years now. Last year, she wrote on Tumblr that she could only acquire it if she signed a new contract, which would give her ownership of one old album for every new one.
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"I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future," she wrote.
Borchetta claimed that the deal he offered Swift would give her "100% of all Taylor Swift assets … to be transferred to her immediately upon signing the new agreement," but Swift’s lawyer told PEOPLE that that was not the case. Braun's team did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.
"Well, I do sleep well at night knowing that I'm right, and knowing that in 10 years it will have been a good thing that I spoke about artists' rights to their art, and that we bring up conversations like: Should record deals maybe be for a shorter term, or how are we really helping artists if we’re not giving them the first right of refusal to purchase their work if they want to?" the "Cardigan" singer told Variety in January about how she's happy she fought hard to own her masters.