At the young age of 15, Taylor Swift originally signed with Big Machine Label Group. She has since produced 6 albums with over 100 total songs under the label. Her years and years of hard work have led her to amazing success, but she’s also been put face to face with a wall keeping her from owning her entire music catalog. Swift has been wanting to buy back all of her music from Big Machine, but the label refused to outright sell it to her. They did offer her a contract that stated that she would get immediate ownership of her music if she stayed with that label for 10 more years. Swift did not agree to signing this contract because she knew that the owner of Big Machine Label Group, Scott Borchetta, was planning on selling Big Machine in the near future. She didn’t want to put her music in the hands of some unknown buyer. This ended up being the right choice for Swift, being that Scott Borchetta ended up selling his label to an enemy of Swift’s, Scooter Braun.

Scooter Braun is talent manager who manages popular artists including Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and many others. Scott Borchetta sold his label to Scooter Braun, knowing of Swift’s distaste with Braun. Swift stated in a tumblr post “Anytime Scott Borchetta has heard the words “Scooter Braun” escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to.” In the same post, she claimed that she was the target of “incessant, manipulative bullying” from Braun for years. This is due to the fact that while Braun was managing Kanye West, they worked together to publicly embarrass Swift through a song and music video, then attempted to argue that Swift consented to it. It was not long until that was debunked, and Swift did not consent to having her name be used in such a horrible manner.

With her life’s work now being in the hands of someone who attempted to dismantle her career, Swift decided to sign with Republic Records, which gave her full rights to any new music she produced. However her 6 albums that were already released were not owned by Swift and she had no rights to. Taylor Swift’s contract with her previous label, Big Machine Label Group gives her the right to re-record any of her old songs as of November of 2020. Swift has announced that she will be re-recording all of her old songs to combat Scooter Braun’s ownership of her music. This will allow Swift to have control over where her music is used. For example, if a company wanted to use an old song of Swift’s for a commercial, she can tell them to use her re-recorded version of the song, which will hurt Scooter Braun and the Big Machine Label Group. This will likely be the case in the majority of situations like this because if the company were to go to Scooter Braun instead of Taylor Swift, they will likely receive bad press.

Many celebrities are backing up Taylor Swift for standing up against the blatant unfairness with artists having the rights to their music. A few of these artists include Selena Gomez, Rihanna, Halsey, Nicki Minaj, Lana Del Ray, and many others. Swift’s actions aim at putting the power back into her hands and giving her control over her life’s work. Her music catalog has taken years of hard work and many people have come to recognize that Taylor Swift, as well as all artists, deserve the right to the art that they have created. Be sure to look out for Taylor Swift’s re-recorded albums and support this incredible artist who’s fighting for herself, and the future of music.