Even outside of the release of Taylor Swift’s new Cats song “Beautiful Ghosts,” it’s been a busy past 24 hours in Swift news. She penned a blog post in which she claims that Big Machine is attempting to prevent her from performing her older music on TV. In light of that news, Swift has seen support and heartfelt messages from musical peers like Camila Cabello and Selena Gomez. Now her publicist, Tree Paine, has shared some words.
Paine claims that Big Machine’s response to Swift’s post wasn’t entirely truthful. Big Machine wrote in their retort, “At no point did we say Taylor could not perform on the AMAs or block her Netflix special.” According to Paine, though, “Yesterday Scott Borchetta, CEO and founder of Big Machine Label Group, flatly denied the request for both American Music Awards and Netflix.”
Paine went on to write, “Please notice in Big Machine’s statement, they never actually deny either claim Taylor said last night in her post.”
Read Paine’s full statement below.
https://twitter.com/treepaine/status/1195353721808596997
“The truth is, on October 28, 2019 at 5:17 p.m. the Vice President, Rights Management and Business Affairs from Big Machine Label Group sent Taylor Swift’s team the following:
‘Please be advised that BMLG will not agree to issue licenses for existing recordings or waivers of its re-recording restrictions in connection with these two projects:
The Netflix documentary and
The Alibaba ‘Double Eleven’ event.’To avoid an argument over rights, Taylor performed three songs off her new album Lover at the Double Eleven event as it was clear that Big Machine Label Group felt any televised performance of catalog songs violated her agreement. In addition, yesterday Scott Borchetta, CEO and founder of Big Machine Label Group, flatly denied the request for both American Music Awards and Netflix. Please notice in Big Machine’s statement, they never actually deny either claim Taylor said last night in her post.
Lastly, Big Machine is trying to deflect and make this about money by saying she owes them but, an independent, professional auditor has determined that Big Machine owes Taylor $7.9 million dollars of unpaid royalties over several years.”
