I still don’t really understand what the hell just happened between Taylor Swift and Big Machine. I do not trust Taylor Swift’s narrative, but I also found Big Machine’s carefully worded narrative very shady. What was it all about in the end? Taylor’s right to perform her Big Machine-era music on the American Music Awards? The rights to that music for her Netflix project? Or was this about something else? Maybe it was Taylor flexing at Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun – “see what I can do, I can just post something on social media and my fans will destroy you and shut down your business and doxx and harass your employees.” All in all, I didn’t think Taylor came out looking that good. But… I think her bullying tactic worked?
The show will go on for Taylor Swift on the “American Music Awards” this Sunday. Following a public dustup concerning permission to perform her older material, whose master rights are owned by Big Machine Label Group, the company (newly owned by Scooter Braun, who purchased it from Scott Borchetta) informed AMAs producers Dick Clark Productions this morning that they have cleared all BMLG artists for performances on the show. The BMLG roster also includes Thomas Rhett, who has been announced to appear on the show.
“The Big Machine Label Group and Dick Clark Productions announce that they have come to terms on a licensing agreement that approves their artists’ performances to stream post show and for re-broadcast on mutually approved platforms,” the company said in a statement. “This includes the upcoming American Music Awards performances. It should be noted that recording artists do not need label approval for live performances on television or any other live media. Record label approval is only needed for contracted artists’ audio and visual recordings and in determining how those works are distributed.”
The detente follows last week’s Swift-Braun-Borchetta flare up involving the sort of music business minutiae that doesn’t commonly interest the general public — the particulars of re-recording old masters. As it relates to the AMAs, an argument could be made that a west coast broadcast of a live show is, technically, a taped version of a song.
“…They have come to terms on a licensing agreement that approves their artists’ performances to stream post show and for re-broadcast on mutually approved platforms…” Ah. So it wasn’t really about the big bad mean men bullying poor Tay-Tay, it was about corporate lawyers working out what would happen to the live performances, how the performances could be rebroadcast, and one would assume, go online as well. Is it possible that the original argument was more like Big Machine telling Taylor “not yet, we have some sh-t we have to work through with Dick Clark Productions” and Taylor was like “I AM ASSEMBLING THE SNAKE ARMY TO DESTROY YOU”?
Update: Apparently, Dick Clark Productions says they didn’t work anything out with Big Machine? I have no idea what’s happening. From Rolling Stone: “At no time did Dick Clark Productions agree to create, authorize or distribute a statement in partnership with Big Machine Label Group regarding Taylor Swift’s performance at the 2019 American Music Awards. Any final agreement on this matter needs to be made directly with Taylor Swift’s management team. We have no further comment.” Um… that says to me that Taylor threw a fit about Dick Clark Prod. & Big Machine working sh-t out “behind her back.”
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I’m looking forward to Taylor Swift’s retirement from the public sphere.
Aren’t we all? 😉
We all are, honestly.
I think Taylor might have possibly created this mess beforehand to make sure she would get a statement that would allow her to sing those songs at the AMA without being sued afterwards.
Becky’s gonna Beck, I guess
Still team Taylor, although with the caveat that maybe she was the one punishing BM and the SBs, and if so good for Taylor. I don’t approve of the doxxing and lack of clarity on what she expected as “support” but these 2 men have held her intellectual property hostage and I’m glad she won this one. She has the backing of DCP, ABC/Disney, plus her huge fanbase so it was pretty foolish that anyone thought she wouldn’t get what she wants and deserves.
Let’s see what happens with Netflix. Netflix doesn’t have the same level of power behind it like the AMA situation. I got my fingers crossed she wins that one too.
She always could sing them. Eyeroll.
So I’m wondering if it’s a combination of things. Like, Big Machine couldn’t stop her from just performing live, as they said in their statement, but they could stop rebroadcast of the west coast feed and streaming online after, which they did. Then the AMAs were like, look we don’t want you to perform the old stuff because we want to put your performance online and reair it on the west coast. So Big Machine is the one clogging up the works, but in a weird roundabout way.
I’m not inclined to believe that Taylor went nuclear with the publicizing if the problem if this was something the lawyers were just haggling over and were going to work out. As high drama as she is, I don’t think she actually wants to be seen as difficult to work with or unprofessional. That kind of reputation could really hurt her down the line. She’s burned the big machine bridge thoroughly already so I think she’s be eager to preserve other relationships, like with the AMA people. Making a solvable corporate dispute public would frustrate the AMA people as well. I could be off base, but I’m just not inclined to believe that she’s waging this sort of PR war for no reason or just to flex. It’s bad business.
Eh I think Taylor is big enough to have some bad business and not really care. She’s bringing a lot of things in-house too.
This seems most likely. Probably a her version, their version, and the truth thing going on. I don’t believe she could always perform them live and she just did all this to create drama and pretend to be a victim. She’s a drama queen with a victim complex, but she’s not psychotic.
I”m not an entertainment lawyer. I was under the belief that any artist can perform their music live, regardless. It’s how the other stuff (streaming and documentaries) is worked out that was mattering to Taylor. This has been industry standard for years. Most musicians don’t “own” their music through poor contracts but still go on tours performing their music.
Dick Clark Productions said in a statement:
“At no time did dick clark productions agree to, create, authorize or distribute a statement in partnership with Big Machine Label Group regarding Taylor Swift’s performance at the 2019 American Music Awards. Any final agreement on this matter needs to be made directly with Taylor Swift’s management team. We have no further comment.”
I’m inclined to believe what Kaiser said: Dick. Clark Productions has to work out the west coast broadcast rights with Big Machine. Dick Clark Productions’ statement sounds as shady as Big Machine’s, because they don’t deny talking to Big Machine, they deny making a joint statement.
This is standard stuff, but I do believe that Big Machine dangled the idea of her not running into trouble with them if she agrees not to re-record her masters.
These shows take planning, but SO MUCH is still up in the air just before many performances, especially at awards shows because the producers has to work in all of the contractual obligations and ryders. Sometimes it’s the lawyers and the artist has to pull out. Sometimes it’s the artists (illness, depression, drugs, abuse, arrogance).
I think Taylor knew that this was generally how it works, but Big Machine messed with her by perhaps suggesting that it would all go away for the AMAs and her documentary if she just did what they said. She said “no”, calling their bluff, and then she engaged her army of fans. I don’t like all of Taylor’s actions, but I can get behind this.
It’s nice to see that Dick Clark Productions is afraid of her, frankly. Scooter Braun probably thought that he could control this through normal music business ways based on his history, but she is too angry with him to even give a centimeter. Methinks Mr. Braun miscalculated. Her determination will make the originals worthless. She will re-record them to sound exactly the same. He will make money, but not the kind that you get with exclusive rights.
I agree that this will only make her more determined to re-record them and BMG will lose money. BMG needs to have exclusivity to her masters to recoup the 300mil that went into the sale and it takes years to recoup that kind of money. She can easily re-release the new masters making the old ones obsolete and she has the fan base to make that happen. I don’t think Braun really truly understands how far she is willing to push this – Taylor is one of those people who pushes and pushes to get what she wants and doesn’t know when to stop pushing.
I guess this is what I don’t understand about the deal. Why on earth would you buy her originals knowing she could remake them within one year? And of course she’d remake them. How was this a successful deal?
My faith in humanity is restored. If a white billionaire chick can’t catch a break who can?
Brilliant! 😂😂😂
When you spend your life creating music and art and then someone buys it out from under you and takes poetic license of it so it is no longer yours, tell me how YOU feel.
There was a comment on the doxxing thread yesterday that made a lot of sense and I’m wondering if that was the issue – that they legally can’t stop her from singing and playing live, but she likely wanted a track so she could dance and lip sync parts of the performance and that’s what started all the drama.
This is what I think now too. She could perform her songs live. She didn’t want to do that.
I truly hope it’s not true and that we are spared her “dancing”. She is a mediocre singer at best but her dancing abilities are shockingly bad, despite what she seems to believe.
Dick Clark Productions denied working with BM. Something is shady AF.
To me, it says that Dick Clark Productions is worried about the snake fam going after them, if it was perceived that they were somehow involved in stopping her from performing her old songs (which would make zero sense, but so much of this doesn’t make sense…..)
Yup, Becks1, Dick Clark Productions had to definitely negotiate the west coast taping and replay rights with Big Machine, but they weren’t going to release a public statement about it. Taylor and Dick Clark productions Know that this is how it’s done. Scooter miscalculated. He can’t get her to do what he wants without forcing her, and I’m sure that most artists would fall in line because they have a lot to lose and don’t know the business side of the business like he does, but she is too big, and she’s so far smart enough to play the players of the game.
It seems like BM keeps trying to invalidate her initial claims in different ways. First they claimed they couldn’t stop her from performing live (not specifically mentioning if she could perform the songs they owned) and then they tried to make it sound like a legal issue with Dick Clark had to be worked out. DC has now denied that, so I think Big Machine is just being shady and gaslighting Taylor.
I wish this would just be over, I hate defending Taylor Swift.
Dick Clark has not denied that they were working out a legal issue. They’ve denied making the statement with BMG.
Taylor proving once again that white female tears and playing the victim works for her. Very on brand. And all she had to do was sic her crazy fans on innocent people to doxx and harass and threaten. This woman is AWFUL.
RIGHT?? This was my thought too.
I always thought she was awful, back when she was singing about Camilla Belle’s performance in bed but after hearing about what happened to these poor employees, I think she is flat-out dangerous.
Of all the current mega-stars – Bey, Riri, etc. – she has, by far, the highest level of engagement with her fans. There is no way she does not know what they are doing and how far they are taking heir harassment. And yet, she stands by and says nothing. Absolute trash.
And we* not only reward her for this shitty behavior but defend it.
*Generic we, of course. Many of us are not fooled.
You know, she’s awful in plenty of ways, but I have to hate-respect her for this one. Scooter was sure he’d win. He always does. Only a woman with her kind of power, like Beyoncé and Taylor, can out-play the players in the game.
In the music business, people are cutthroat for their money. It’s all nice talk until the money is split, and she is refusing to be forced into keep the catalogue valuable. She will blow it up. The people who work at Big Machine didn’t deserve to be threatened, but the owners of Big Machine think that they know what they are dealing with. I think that they are negotiating in what they think is good faith, but I think it’s their fault for thinking that they can control a powerful woman’s work. They USUALLY can, but not today, and so they keep trying these tricks that she and her lawyers have seen a million times. She has great lawyers: they are many steps ahead of Scooter, and she uses her fans to break through the hidden messages in all of the BM statements.
I’m no Taylor stan, but the boys need to understand that they won’t be keeping that money. She will be keeping it. Regardless of how valid her hatred of Scooter is, it’s nice to see her win.
It’s a sickening business. I have stories from the ex and about things I’ve seen with my own eyeballs. Now my kid is entering the music business, so I’m watching carefully. Not that kid will become Taylor or Beyonce, but she may get to back them or do something else in music, so these performance negotiations and music rights things concern me:
My brother was on the business side of the music industry for years. My point stands: Taylor is a garbage person who uses her money, her race and her fans to get what she wants. If people want to continue to defend her – for WHATEVER reason – have at it. I will not.
VV, I agree that she is garbage, but she is playing the players in the game. You and I don’t have to defend her. She can do it herself, from what I can see. And I will still hate-respect her for doing it on that level.
Dick Clark Productions released a statement about an hour after her old label, saying they had nothing to do with coming to an agreement and they didn’t authorize a statement. So they pissed off ABC/Disney for what??
So her old label flexed their power to get her to promise not to re-record her work next year in order to be all cleared for the AMA performance. But then backtracked and pretended like they had to make a deal with Dick Clark when they didn’t.
“At no time did Dick Clark Productions agree to create, authorize or distribute [A STATEMENT] in partnership with Big Machine Label Group regarding Taylor Swift’s performance at the 2019 American Music Awards. Any [FINAL] agreement on this matter needs to be made directly with Taylor Swift’s management team.” Dick Clark negotiated with BMG. They did not agree to release a statement about it.
BMG had to make a deal with Dick Clark Productions for the west coast replay. They denied that they agreed to a statement. They did not deny that they negotiated replay rights with BMG. They are saying that they aren’t in the middle of this thing with Scooter and Taylor. Dick Clark Productions has to know what Braun is trying to do, and they have and want nothing to do with it.
It’s within Scooter’s rights to make money off of his investment, but she is NOT going to let him do it, and she isn’t going to keep professional business confidences with him. She’s going scorched earth. He knows that. He needs to think about the employees, like Dick Clark Productions did. She isn’t Justin Bieber, dealing with depression, or some insecure artist. Taylor Swift has power, and she hates Scooter Braun. He needs to understand that she is going scorched earth and is willing to hurt people. Hey, I had to realize that my narcissistic sociopath ex was threatening to destroy my friends, so I backed away from them all to protect them from stalking and harassment. Scooter needs to accept that he ain’t winning this one and that he flushed $300M does the toilet.
They all know how it works. She just refuses to comply because she wants Scooter to lose his $300M investment. She hates him. It’s personal.
Another gossip site is reporting that Taylor may still not perform – something along the lines of not being ready because an artist needs about a month to rehearse.
Two theories:
1. She doesn’t have the musical chops to sing live and it would be a trainwreck.
2. A source said she was planning something BIG in lieu of a performance….a statement against what is being done to her, who knows? If she doesn’t perform, it feels like her desire to destroy Big Machine is more important to her than being “Artist of the Decade”.
Her lack of singing talent has never stopped her from performing live before. She could just sing with backup vocalists.
So the next time she has a personal/business grievance, that’s what she will do. Send her army of derangerd fans on her target du jour. It’s dangerous, she knows it and she doesn’t care. Note that she has yet to say anything about her fans’ unhinged behavior. But the media won’t call her out. Of course not.
If reincarnation is real, I really hope I come back as a minimally talented, spoiled white millionaire.
I also hope that all of her enemies, real or perceived, and god knows they are many, have good security around them. One of these days, a member of the Swift army is going to take it to far. Think Monica Seles/Steffi Graff.
But now she is complaining that she did not have enough time even though she said she was planning on performing them last week before sending her zombies after them….
Why do people keep falling for her nonsense?
She was always able to “sing live”, but as I understand it, her ability to use backing vocals and accompanying music may have been limited. If she’s singing a melody of hits, I think this means she would have to sing them acapella. As a stage performer, I imagine this option sucks for her, and would be a shock to the audience not to have the Taylor Swift razzle-dazzle to distract from her fine, but not amazing, vocal stylings.
And then she’ll put on a big show and everyone will be talking about what a trooper and a genius she is and how fighting for what you believe in will always work out in the end. Classic.
Yep. Girls like her always win.
Honestly, my tin foil hat says this was all just to drum up interest in the AMA’s and Taylor’s performance and to create interest in her re-recordings of her masters next year.
I didn’t even know the AMAs were this weekend until all of this.
Beck1, that rings true to the game: nice controversy to bring viewers. No wonder DCP are all, “WE aren’t in this”.
As annoying as Taylor Swift can be, I really believe that BMG tried to block her from using her old music (from which both parties would have benefited) in order to make a deal with her that would prevent her from re-recording her music. If she does that, its gonna hit them and their investors hard – Taylors music is the most profitable part of BMG (iirc 80% of the net worth). Their investors probably really pushed Scott and Scooter hard to make sure they don’t loose any money. And I bet all of BMG’s sneakily worded press releases, the news yesterday about Scooter Braun blaming Scott Borchetta and that weird statement out reaching an agreement with Dick Clark Productions were preceded by some very uncomfortable phone calls from someone from the Carlyle Group.
Taylor doesn’t know when to stop. Should she and every other artist control their masters? YES. But you can fight honorably to change that without doing what she did. She knew what she was doing with her fans and what they would do. And she’s been silent about their actions. That’s what is indefensible.
I thought the DC statement was a response to Big Machine’s statement that they had ‘come to terms on a licensing agreement’.
Fairydust, I think that they did come to terms, but Dick Clark Productions has no interest in being used by BMG to save them from the snake army. They don’t want to be attacked, and Taylor Swift knows that this is normal stuff when putting an awards show together. And the label offering Taylor a deal in their favor over the masters is also normal. What is not normal is that TS has power and a crazy fan base, and she is willing to use it.
BMG is counting on people not understanding the music business, so they keep making statements, but the fans will do what TS wants.
I saw on TMZ Taylor could always sing her old songs live. They said artists can sing another person’s song live, (think American Idol, The Voice, etc), without permission from whomever owns the tracks. They can’t go and then sell a record of that without permission, but there was never anything legally stopping her from singing her old songs at the AMA.
She’s the absolute worst.
The issue is that, once recorded on the East Coast. – recording is played 3 hours later on the west coast. The west coast recording is what DCP and BMG has to negotiate fees for. Believe that BMG knows that they get to charge DCP for that recording of Taylor singing her BMG-owned hits on a timed delay. It’s the whole reason you purchase somebody’s work.
My whole issue was the statement Braun and Borcheta put out, which really didn’t answer the question. They said they “did not tell her she couldn’t perform for the AMA or that they are blocking the Netflix special”. However, Taylor did not accuse them of that. She is accusing them of having told her that she couldn’t play her old songs at the AMA or on Netflix. They did not deny her actual accusation.
I mean, I’m not saying Taylor doesn’t have her missteps, but these two, especially Braun, don’t have a pristine reputation. And I totally believe that they would try to prevent her from singing her older songs that are under their ownership, if for no other reason than to be petty AF and control her to some extent. Millions watching the AMAs is free advertising for her old songs, so why wouldn’t a label want maximum exposure?
Overall, record labels and production companies don’t have the best rep when it comes to being fair to artists, and definitely aren’t angels that have never and don’t continue to rip off artists either. I actually do believe they non-formally non-officially and not-in-writing told her she couldn’t just to be asses.
I love that she made her name on being anti-bullying and yet regularly bullies others…oh, wait, her fans do so her hands are always clean. I’m in the same age range as Taylor, just a few years older and I used to be a fan. Girl can write some good music, I’ll give her that but she turned me off with her mean girl/innocent victim act. You’re almost 30, sweetie, squads are pathetic at that age. She’s stuck in high school competing for the title of prom queen. None of her recent actions are those of a victim. They are the actions of a manipulative teenager who thinks her farts don’t stink. It’s coming back to bite her. Her fans are grown up now or close to it and everyone is now seeing through her BS. She’s earned it.