Just Announced category interest

In an announcement that came as really no surprise to anyone, especially after the dustup and barbs exchanged over the past several months, Scooter Braun has sold the master rights to Taylor Swift's first six studio albums a mere 18 months after puirchasing them in an acquisition that also included the rest of Big Machine Label Group's assets. 

The sale was estimated in a story by Variety Magazine to be somewhere in the ballpark of $300 million, and the purchser, an investment fund, remains unnamed at press time. Scooter Braun's company, Ithaca Holdings LLC, purchased Swift's former label, Big Machine Records, founded by Scott Borchetta, in June of last year for around the same amount as today's purchase. That initial purchas included all of BMLG's assets, clients, current deals, publishing rights, andamp; master recordings. 

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As has been made abundantly clear in the press, Swift is free to re-record the songs from her first five albums, which were part of today's sale, though that idea has been almost universally panned by the music industry as reactionary and unwise. Songs tend to not retain their initial value when re-recorded after a long period of time and never quite make the impact they once did. Sometimes it's just best to move on and move up. Several of Swift's contemporaries have come to her side with support of her announcement that she intended to re-release the songs, but that support may just be mere comeraderie rather than well thought out strategic advice. It also seems that Swift may be considering re-recording the songs simply to spite Braun, whom she has publicly accused of being a "bully". As Braun no longer controls those masters, it will be interesting to see if Swift moves forward with her plans or scraps them, so as not to devalue her previous work with what could be watered down re-workings of the same tunes. 

Time will tell.