Pop country star Taylor Swift is providing her fans with an update on social media regarding the recent sale of her old masters. Swift says that she has been trying to regain control of her old music for over a year.
It’s been 17 months since veteran manager and entrepreneur Scooter Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings LLC, acquired Big Machine Label Group and all of its recorded music assets. Those assets include the master rights to Swift’s first six albums.
According to Swift’s recent social media post, Braun recently sold the master rights to her music in a deal worth north of $300 million and closed in the last two weeks.
The buyer, Swift says, is a private equity company called Shamrock Holdings. They informed the music star in a letter that they had bought 100 percent of her music, videos, and album art from Braun.
Swift posted a lengthy update about the situation in a photo on Twitter. She also included a screenshot of the letter she sent back to Shamrock.
“Been getting a lot of questions about the recent sale of my old masters. I hope this clears things up,” Swift wrote on Twitter.
Taylor Swift Says She Attempted to Work With Scooter Braun
With the goal of getting her music back, Swift says she attempted to negotiate with Braun. She says in the post that Braun’s team asked her to sign an ironclad non-disclosure agreement.
“Scooter’s team wanted me to sign an ironclad NDA stating I would never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive, before we could even look at the financial records of BMLG,” Swift wrote in the post. “So, I would have to sign a document that would silence me forever before I could even have a chance to bid on my own work.”
Swift said that according to her legal team, that kind of agreement was not normal in the industry. Further, they say they had never seen an agreement like that unless it was to silence an assault accuser by paying them off.
Additionally, Swift says that she declined to work with Shamrock Holdings since Braun would still profit from her work.
She also told fans that she began re-recording her old albums, calling it “exciting and creatively fulfilling.”
