UPDATE: Taylor has responded to the news reports and clears up a few things for the fans.
Been getting a lot of questions about the recent sale of my old masters. I hope this clears things up. pic.twitter.com/sscKXp2ibD
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 16, 2020
Scooter Braun has sold the master rights to Taylor Swift’s first six albums.
The moves about 18 months after Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine, run and founded by Scott Borchetta, for a price around $300m in June last year. As a result of the deal, Scooter’s Ithaca Holdings owned and controlled six of Taylor Swift’s multi-platinum studio albums including Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation.
Taylor signed with BMLG right at the beginning of her career with her contract with the label expiring in fall 2018. She then signed a deal with Universal Music Group for all her future recordings.
The buyer is an investment fund and is unknown as of now, reports Variety. The deal is believed to be north of $300 million and was closed in the last two weeks.
Last year, Taylor had revealed that she plans to re-record her hits, and stated that she has blocked the use of her Big Machine recordings from sync use in order to thwart Ithaca’s ability to gain licensing money from the tracks. If she re-records, that will enable her to make additional revenue off her old songs as fans will likely boycott the original ones, to support her.
When Scooter’s company bought Taylor’s master rights, she publicly criticized the move. “This just happened to me without my approval, consultation or consent. After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalog was sold to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I’m told was funded by the Soros family, 23 Capital and that Carlyle Group. Yet, to this day, none of these investors have bothered to contact me or my team directly — to perform their due diligence on their investment. On their investment in me. To ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art, the music I wrote, the videos I created, photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs.” She added: “The fact is that private equity enabled this man to think, according to his own social media post, that he could ‘buy me.’ But I’m obviously not going willingly.”