Pharrell Williams Supported Taylor Swift in Her Battle with Scooter Braun
About a month ago, Scooter Braun sold the master rights of Taylor Swift’s first six albums in a $300 Million deal to a private equity firm Shamrock Holdings based in Los Angeles. Due to the lack of artists’ rights over their work in the industry, Pharrell Williams supported Taylor Swift in her battle with Scooter Braun. In an interview with Variety, Williams showed his sympathy with Taylor’s predicament as she has to rerecord all of her albums to acquire ownership. Pharrell has also gone through the similar situation, as he has recently acquired the possession of his originals from Columbia Records.
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Pharrell Williams Talks About Artists’ Struggle
Pharrell Williams, the 47-year-old ‘Happy’ singer, emphasized the lack of rights for artists in the industry. He expressed his opinions and termed it as a ‘crime’ not to give the trademark to the original creator despite being the act to be legal. Williams said in the interview that in his eyes it doesn’t make a sense that a startup initiated in the industry but doesn’t own the trademark on its work.
While talking about gaining ownership from Columbia Records, Pharrell Williams stated it as ‘huge milestone, but it shouldn’t be.’ He added, ‘We shouldn’t be celebrating that because I shouldn’t be one of let’s call it dozens of people who own their original recordings.’
Pharrell Williams Supported Taylor Swift in Her Battle with Scooter Braun
Around 17 months ago, Scooter Braun purchased the rights of Taylor Swift’s master recordings. The multimillionaire singer, Taylor Swift, has claimed that her masters were sold to Shamrock Holdings without her knowledge. As per the sources, Scooter Braun will continue to gain with the catalog and it may rise to $450 Million. Taylor Swift came out on Twitter after finding about the deal and accused Scooter of refuting her the chance to own her old recordings.
Pharrell Williams supported Taylor Swift in her battle with Scooter Braun, as he thinks that the whole system in the music industry is wrong. Pharrell said that he doesn’t know whether Swift had the opportunity to retain the ownership of her masters, but the artist should be given a chance at first place to purchase the rights of their own recordings.
