NYT:Taylor Swift’s Feud With Scooter Braun Spotlights Musicians’ Struggles

[hausga 615]

 

It is one of the oldest and hardest lessons of the music industry: No matter how successful artists may be, chances are someone else owns their work.

Prince, protesting how his label, Warner Bros., had control over his master recordings, quipped in 1996: “If you don’t own your masters, your master owns you.” That same year, when Janet Jackson negotiated a landmark contract with Virgin Records, ownership of her original recordings was a major deal point.

Now we can add Taylor Swift to the chorus of artists who have bemoaned that their creative work is someone else’s property, as she once again used her social-media megaphone to stir debate about the inner workings of the music industry.

In a Tumblr post on Sunday, Swift responded bitterly to the news that her former label, Big Machine, had been sold for more than $300 million to a company run by Scooter Braun, the manager of pop stars including Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

Swift had strong personal objections to the deal, which included the rights to her first six albums, blaming Braun for orchestrating “incessant, manipulative bullying” against her by Kanye West, an on-and-off client.

But the episode also highlighted the fraught and little-understood industry politics of master recordings — the original copies of an artist’s work — and the copyrights associated with them.

The owner of a master controls all rights to exploit it, including selling albums or licensing songs for movies or video games. The artist still earns royalties from those recordings once associated costs are fulfilled, but controlling the master could bring greater income, as well as a level of protection over how the work is used in the future. (These rights are separate from copyrights for songwriting.)

The deep significance that musicians attach to their masters was highlighted last month, when a group of artists sued the Universal Music Group over a fire in 2008 that destroyed many original recordings, after an exposé was published in The New York Times Magazine.

Historically, record companies have retained rights to masters in exchange for the financial risks they take in backing an artist over the course of their contract.

 

“Fundamentally, the business model that most record companies operate under is not unlike the venture capital business,” said Larry Miller, the director of the music business program at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

“They make investments in unproven talent,” he added. “The trade is that, traditionally, the masters stay with the record company.”

Swift, despite appearing to have an almost unrivaled level of self-determination as a star — like single-handedly getting Apple to change a royalties policy in 2015 — signed such a deal with Big Machine in 2005, at the beginning of her career. Her post on Sunday was partly an admonishment to young artists to avoid those kinds of contracts.

“This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept,” Swift wrote, in a jab at Big Machine’s founder, Scott Borchetta.

Hours later, Borchetta posted a rejoinder, including a snippet of a deal proposal, that suggested that Swift could have earned her recording rights back had she renewed with Big Machine last year. Instead, she signed with Universal. (Her next album, “Lover,” is due in August.)

Borchetta also called into question Swift’s claim that she only learned of the deal once the news broke — he said he texted her the night before — and noted that her father, Scott Swift, was a minority shareholder in Big Machine.

In a Tumblr post on Sunday, Swift responded bitterly to the news that her former label, Big Machine, had been sold for more than $300 million to a company run by Scooter Braun, the manager of pop stars including Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

Swift had strong personal objections to the deal, which included the rights to her first six albums, blaming Braun for orchestrating “incessant, manipulative bullying” against her by Kanye West, an on-and-off client.

But the episode also highlighted the fraught and little-understood industry politics of master recordings — the original copies of an artist’s work — and the copyrights associated with them.

 

The owner of a master controls all rights to exploit it, including selling albums or licensing songs for movies or video games. The artist still earns royalties from those recordings once associated costs are fulfilled, but controlling the master could bring greater income, as well as a level of protection over how the work is used in the future. (These rights are separate from copyrights for songwriting.)

The deep significance that musicians attach to their masters was highlighted last month, when a group of artists sued the Universal Music Group over a fire in 2008 that destroyed many original recordings, after an exposé was published in The New York Times Magazine.

Historically, record companies have retained rights to masters in exchange for the financial risks they take in backing an artist over the course of their contract.

The barbs between Swift and Borchetta, a rare example of such contractual dirty laundry being aired outside of litigation, captivated the industry and raised questions about the age-old power dynamic between artist and label

 

The singer and rapper XXXTentacion, for example, who was killed in a shooting last year, rejected traditional long-term label deals in favor of one-off contracts for each of his releases that offered lower payment upfront, but gave him full ownership and a higher royalty rate.

Swift’s talent for fueling debate continued on Tumblr — the platform where she frequently communes with her most faithful fans — well after she published her account of the deal. “taylor will not be silenced,” wrote one fan who earned acknowledgment from Swift.

Elsewhere, some questioned whether Swift, with her enormous wealth and reputation for careful self-mythologizing, was the best messenger for this ongoing battle, especially after Borchetta pushed back, sharing deal points and private text messages between the two parties.

But the power of Swift’s fame made her message about the importance of ownership a vital lesson, Stoute said.

“If you’re an artist today, you must go into the record deal owning your master,” he said. “If not, then you are basically building an asset that you will not own.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/arts/music/taylor-swift-master-recordings.html

[VoldeLorde2 8,389]

I know I see some members on here are getting bored with this topic but if you read this for even a second you will see why this is such a big deal. 

7 minutes ago, hausga said:

Prince, protesting how his label, Warner Bros., had control over his master recordings, quipped in 1996: “If you don’t own your masters, your master owns you.” 

That’s a scary thing to even think about, imagine being the artist having to go through it.

[S0436 10,215]

Struggle + Taylor Swift?  She’s worth $350million

[VoldeLorde2 8,389]

Just now, hausga said:

it scares me tbh imagine how was Prince feeling . i honestly wonder how his mental health was affected during his decades long fight to own his masters . i honestly feel so bad for him 

I know I saw a picture of him with the word “slave” written on his face, and, considering his quote I put above, I think that was in relation to this very thing.

[TheRealJT 2,291]

I can’t believe people are writing novels about this. There are literally kids dying in cages right now and we’re worried about a millionaire losing money 

[Leblanc 2,246]

I respect her for trying to shed light on this for newer artists who want to sign.

But at the same time, you sign what you sign. It's unfortunate, yes. But not unfair. It's business.

[OnHappiness 13]

35 minutes ago, ThatBish said:

I respect her for trying to shed light on this for newer artists who want to sign.

But at the same time, you sign what you sign. It's unfortunate, yes. But not unfair. It's business.

Argue as much as you want, but obey. 

 

[Mr S 7,638]

Can someone highlight the part that mentiona Gaga? It's a lot to read

[SEXODUS 5,920]

She has every right (almost an obligation) to shed light on such a difficult matter for musicians and to make this a battle. There’s not doubt about it.

My main concern with this whole situation is that I do believe she’s manipulating and using this story for her own personal goals, which is seeking attention in order to sell that damn album. I don’t even blame that Scooter guy, for the system is evil, not him following what the system dictates. And I also don’t believe for a second her and her legal team didn’t know about the masters. 

Good fight, opportunistic person.

[Bloody 64,631]

So many people here don't understand that it's more than that. It's not just about Taylor being bitter or mad and it doesn't matter if she's a multimillionaire. You have to see the bigger picture. 

She's letting all the new artists out there to know how important it is to be able to own their hard work and not let it fall to the wrong hands. 

[Bloody 64,631]

10 minutes ago, SEXODUS said:

She has every right (almost an obligation) to shed light on such a difficult matter for musicians and to make this a battle. There’s not doubt about it.

My main concern with this whole situation is that I do believe she’s manipulating and using this story for her own personal goals, which is seeking attention in order to sell that damn album. I don’t even blame that Scooter guy, for the system is evil, not him following what the system dictates. And I also don’t believe for a second her and her legal team didn’t know about the masters. 

Good fight, opportunistic person.

I dont think it's a way to sell her new album. She's been very successful with her album sales since always. 

I think it's great that she makes it public. It's time they exposed how awful the music industry is. 

[Leblanc 2,246]

14 minutes ago, hausga said:

thank you honestly thats whats i am struggling to try understand many here in this site. its literally isn't about taylor swift at all but the awful state of the music industry

i just wanted people and artists to give a big **** you to such record companies and decide to either build their own label or go completely independent

As one of the people I think you might be referring to, from my earlier comment, I know it's about more than her.

The system is messed up and that's correct but like, without that deal she and many potential others may have never become who they are.

Record labels are integral to helping a lot of artists become successful. It's their money, connections and various other things behind the scenes that helps an artist to get big.

As was mentioned in the article, the masters are their insurance policy. I don't think it's fair from a business standpoint to funnel a bunch of resources into someone without something to show for it. But what a nice world it would be if it wasn't like that.

[SEXODUS 5,920]

30 minutes ago, Bloody said:

I dont think it's a way to sell her new album. She's been very successful with her album sales since always. 

I think it's great that she makes it public. It's time they exposed how awful the music industry is. 

Who said it wasn't? It's a given, really. It's absurd that artists don't own their music fully. That same absurdity would have been just about enough for this to make the headlines, if spoken by an industry star like herself. We'd still be talking about this if she just had written a post about her not owning the masters to her music.

But once again, and you'd have to agree with me that her increase in popularity and sold records is in large part due to her making the headlines for external reasons to her music, mainly about her love life or feuds with fellow artists, she just had to turn this into a war. A war that her fans are crusading for against someone that, most probably, was just following the rules that someone else has established and no one has fought to change. I repeat myself in saying that I don't believe for a second that she didn't know what contract she was signing. 

So, from this being a fight againts injustice, it turned into her being a victim. People are picking sides for no reasons, with all the hating and defusing bombs, and most of these people don't even know what a master is. They're just defending their idol, which they should, of course, but if this is an idol that lies (a partial lie, I'll give her that) to follow a marketing strategy just about a month before the release of her new album, she still ends up on the wrong sides of things. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Let's hope this fight (feud?) at least changes things in this rotten industry. 

[Galagala 4,444]

Now this is the whole thing's about.