Taylor Swift hasn’t only become one of the most successful artists in the world, with people embarking on epic fights on their computers to get tickets for her Eras Tour, but she’s also made history by standing up for her music and tricking the system to do so.
As you might remember, in 2019 Taylor’s music catalog was sold without the artist’s consent to Scooter Braun. Naturally, Taylor Swift was enraged by this move that didn’t even consider her as the creator of the material. As happens to many artists, most studios make them sign contracts in which pretty much they grant the rights of their music to the company.
Well, in the deal of 2019, Scooter Braun purchased the master rights to Taylor Swift’s first six albums among the catalog of other artists. According to Music Business Worldwide, of the $300 million deal, Taylor’s father, Scott Swift, received $15.1 million; however, Taylor’s rep has claimed that her father didn’t know anything about the sale before it happened.
“On June 25, there was a shareholder phone call that Scott Swift did not participate in due to a very strict NDA that bound all shareholders and prohibited any discussion at all without risk of severe penalty. Her dad did not join that call because he did not want to be required to withhold any information from his daughter. Taylor found out from the news articles when she woke up before seeing any text from Scott Borchetta, and he did not call her in advance,” said the statement.
As we know now, although there wasn’t anything she could do regarding the material of her six first albums, Taylor proved to be quite a witty businesswoman and re-recorded all her music (now famously called Taylor’s Version) to re-appropriate her legacy and prevented Scooter Brau from profiting from a deal she had nothing to do about.
Real Taylor fans have since listened to and consumed only these versions and, in the end, the whole nightmare ended up being Taylor’s empowering legacy in the music industry. It’s still to be disclosed if her father actually had something to do with the sale behind Taylor’s back, but what is true, is that good won!
