[indistinct conversation]
[cheers]
We love you, Taylor!
Taylor Swift is really unique in that she is the first musician
to become a billionaire just solely through music.
Yes!
I don't think it's an overestimation to say
that Taylor Swift is the most impactful songwriter of her generation.
[paparazzi] Scott, right here.
[Mikael Wood] Scott Borchetta, who signed her to Big Machine,
he sold the label,
and with it her masters of her early work,
to Scooter Braun, a very high profile manager,
who managed at various points
Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande
and, of course, most importantly, Kanye West
who Taylor had long viewed as an antagonizer of hers.
[Zing Tsjeng] This was a huge deal for her
I think psychologically and emotionally,
turning this contractual boardroom fight
into something much bigger,
which is about feminism, it's about women's rights.
[Anna Silman]This was a battle of titans.
It wasn't David versus Goliath.
It was Goliath versus Goliath.
[fans cheering]
Taylor is very down to earth, very genuine, very real.
[Zack Hourihane]To have this collection of moments and stories
taken away from her and sold without her knowledge
was truly like a gut punch for her fans.
She knew Scooter expected her to sit down and shut up and be a good girl,
and she wasn't going to take it that way.
[woman 1] I do not see that he did anything wrong.
He paid for his rights fair and square.
[man] The truth didn't matter.
She had the ability to rally her fans.
[woman 2] She literally called on her fans
to apply pressure on Scooter.
Did you maybe stop and think about what it means
when you activate your fans against someone?
[Silman] We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.
We're talking about the catalog of one of the most beloved artists in the world.
There was a lot at stake.
♪ I tell my soul ♪
♪ Only love forgives ♪
♪ Tell my soul ♪
♪ Only love forgives ♪
♪ I've been through flame And fire ♪
♪ It's got me In a devil's noose ♪
♪ I tell my soul ♪
♪ My soul ♪
♪ Only love Only love forgives ♪
[keyboard clacking]
-[man 1] Taylor! Taylor! -[man 2] Taylor.
[chants] Taylor! Taylor!
[Wood] It's 2019 Billboard Women In Music event.
An industry crowd, insiders,
and Taylor is giving a speech and says,
"My music was sold out from underneath me..."
After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright.
My entire catalog was sold to Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings.
None of these investors have ever bothered
to contact me or my team directly
to perform their due diligence on their investment...
On their investment in me.
[Tsjeng] She seems genuinely in crisis.
She's upset.
You can tell that she is in kind of freefall about this.
[Wood] The fact that someone's bought my catalog
without letting me know...
This isn't right.
This isn't the way it should be done.
[Tsjeng] Taylor was very good at turning something
that, to most people, is a really incomprehensible, unrelatable situation
in which you are fighting a boardroom,
you are fighting a music label,
and turning it into something really understandable,
which is, "I've made the songs.
I've created them. I've written them. I've sung them.
I deserve to own it."
-[cameras flashing] -[paparazzi 1] Taylor, over the shoulder!
[Tsjeng] This became very much a public dispute
and what is considered a kind of Scooter versus Taylor field,
it really goes all the way back.
It actually has a lot to do with Kanye West.
[paparazzi 2] You look wonderful.
[paparazzi 1] Over the shoulder, Taylor!
-[indistinct conversation] -[fans cheering]
In 2009, Taylor is making
She was so young and, you know, she's 19
and she's up against people like Beyoncé,
who has the song Single Ladies,
which is one of the biggest songs of that year.
I mean, you know, when you're a teenage artist
who's crossing over, especially from country to pop music,
this is a massive deal.
Yeah, it feels awesome anytime I'm on the same list,
as people like Britney Spears and Beyoncé.
It's like, I can't even believe that.
I can't believe that I get to be at the VMAs
and perform and be nominated.
It's a wonderful night.
So when Taylor goes up to accept the award for best female music video...
Thank you so much for giving me a chance to win a VMA award. I--
Kanye West comes on stage, interrupts her.
-Yo, Taylor. -[audience cheering]
I'm really happy for you. Imma let you finish.
But Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.
One of the best videos of all time.
[Brittany Spanos]Taylor would talk about this later,
about how, after the VMA experience,
she was, of course, a Kanye West fan.
I was really excited because I had just won the award
and then I was really excited because Kanye West was on the stage.
And then I--
Then I wasn't so excited anymore after that.
[male reporter] So were you a fan before?
Yeah, it's Kanye West.
[Spanos] It makes sense that there is this extra level of,
"Oh no, a hero of mine doesn't think I deserve this award."
[Wood] You know, she's a very young woman at the time.
She viewed it as a real violation of her...
Moment in the spotlight, for sure,
but also of her artistic authority.
Here she was, she had been chosen to win.
And here was someone saying that If you didn't deserve it, somebody else did it.
So I think right from the beginning
it's sort of framing this as Kanye diminishing Taylor as an artist.
[paparazzi] Kanye, over here, please.
[Spanos] Taylor hosted SNL the week after.
[singing] You might be expecting me to say something bad about Kanye...
[audience laughing]
...and how he ran up on the stage
and ruined my VMA monologue.
[heavy sigh]
[continues singing] But there's nothing more to say
'cause everything's okay.
I've got security lining the stage.
[Spanos]She had a great moment
where she's made a joke about it in her monologue that she wrote herself
and nipped the whole thing in the bud,
and Taylor moved on quickly from the drama around that night
and just went back to work and touring.
One of the things that made Taylor different from almost anybody else
that American pop culture had ever seen
is that she was initially a teenager making music
really for people her own age.
And there have been very few teenage stars
up until Taylor that managed to grow
that level of success into adulthood.
I first met Taylor because we got seated
next to each other at an industry dinner
right after she had signed her record deal with Big Machine.
Coming into music row, Big Machine is right here.
That was the building that Taylor Swift and Scott Borchetta built.
[Wood] So Big Machine is a label in Nashville started by Scott Borchetta,
and Taylor is one of his earliest acts that he signs.
I think he recognizes that this is a special talent,
maybe a generational talent.
And Taylor's success, not surprisingly, attracts lots of artists.
And the label is a success, and Borchetta benefits greatly from that success.
It occurs to me how lucky I am actually.
I get so excited about it and I wake up with a smile on my face,
and honestly never thought I'd get to do this stuff.
[on recording]I never told you this before.
You have a very "easy to talk to" stance,
and I don't think it's anything you know you're doing.
-[Scott Borchetta] Yeah. -[Taylor Swift] But it's like, it's just like, really chill
-and like, we're just talking. - [Borchetta] Oh good.
-Well, that's what I'm going for. So... - [Swift] Yeah.
15-year-old Taylor was very friendly
and very determined.
She knew how to talk to people,
she knew how to connect with people.
She took songwriting seriously.
She wanted to put in the work of learning to write songs
before she put in the work of learning to be famous.
Taylor continued to grow with her audience,
but also she began to add people
that didn't pay any attention to her when she was a teenager.
And so she not only made that successful transition
from teen pop star into major adult music star,
she actually got bigger.
[woman] Do you need help with those?
No, I'm going to carry them as long as they'll let me have them.
She found a way to connect with people
who were just beginning to hear her music
and turned them into fans
that felt like they were friends.
[Hourihane] Taylor Swift is the world's best friend.
She's really good at bridging the gap
between I am a famous person and this is my music.
This is my prized Taylor Swift merch collection.
This is a collector's item that I got in 2012.
It's just a really beautiful construction
of a young girl trying to figure out her life
while everything is kind of going wrong around it.
Taylor Swift is hugely important to me
because her songs, her albums and her tours
have really soundtracked the major moments of my life.
For me. I think that, you know, writing my own songs was a way to--
To, you know, create what I wanted to create and music about my life.
And that way it kind of became just a diary put to music
every time I put out a new record.
[Hourihane] Her unique skill as a songwriter
and a performer is being able to say something very personal
and make it feel very general or universally applicable.
And so I feel hurt when she's hurt,
and I feel happy when she's happy.
And I think that's a really essential part of being a Taylor Swift fan
is kind of living her life alongside her.
Growing up as a young gay man in Singapore,
those songs were really kind of like little lullabies that sung me to sleep at night
when I wasn't quite sure who I was or where I was going.
It is undeniable that she is the most impactful songwriter of our generation
on par with The Beatles, on par with Bob Dylan.
She has a desire to be seen as a songwriter,
as someone who has a craft.
Women in pop have historically
and inaccurately been portrayed
as just cogs in the machine, as not creative.
So Taylor Swift's real push to position herself
as a songwriter first and foremost, has been immensely impactful.
[fans cheering]
She is able to write these very personal songs
that invoke imagery of writing in your diary in your bedroom as a teenager.
And what's been so interesting following her career
is the ways that she's never lost
that intensely personal way of writing,
even as her life has got less relatable.
-Hello. Nice to meet you. -Lisa. How are you?
I'm doing great. How are you?
I wish I hadn't put my-- I just took my heels off and now--
Oh! And then, a giant walks up. Yeah.
[Alex Goldschmidt]She's such a nice person. She's such a kind person.
I got here and there were all these signs
and people with pictures of me like outside,
like all the fans like screaming.
It was amazing.
She has always just put a strong emphasis in her career
on rewarding those fans and surprising them.
And if she's able to showing up and being there for important moments
just to show the connection and the love
that she has for her fans.
There is one secret that I didn't trust any of you with.
It's a crazy story, but I decided to propose to my husband
while I was listening to a song from her albumReputation in the car.
The song is calledKing of My Heart.
And so I just wrote her an email just letting her know
that this song had impacted me in such a way.
-Hi. -[all cheering]
Which ended up leading to her coming to my engagement party
and singing the song on guitar.
[singing] All at once you are the one I have been waiting for.
King of my heart.
Body and soul. Oh-oh.
[Goldschmidt]We all are on this planet looking for connection,
looking for love, looking for happiness.
And she has such a skill at putting those relatable feelings to music
that it makes the fans even more feel like she's their champion.
You know when she's singing about something
that was truly heartbreaking or sad,
you do want to pick up a pitchfork
and be like, "Who hurt Taylor?"
Give it up for my friend Justin.
-[audience cheering] -Give it up for Justin Bieber!
[Silman] I think one thing to understand is that
Taylor has a really long history with a lot of people
that Scooter also has a long history with,
and I think there's a lot behind the scenes that we don't know about.
Justin Bieber is a singer and he's also being managed by Scooter Braun.
Scooter Braun is a talent manager and a businessman.
He was more than just a manager.
He was a father figure to Justin.
I couldn't be more happy that I met him
and he helped me get to where I am.
[woman] That's so nice.
In Justin Bieber's 2011 concert documentary,Never Say Never,
Scooter gave himself a key supporting role.
And he talks about Taylor Swift
as this inspiration for Justin.
We got invited to meet Taylor Swift at her sold out show.
First time she'd ever sold out the Garden.
And I remember the kids are waving their hands side to side
all around these stands.
[Silman] A lot of managers are content
to kind of hang in the background and be invisible.
But Scooter always wanted to be out there and be in front of the camera.
And in clients documentaries since then,
he's often made himself a character.
I think he really wants to be known.
You're in the second row.
-[screams] -Are you serious? Oh my God!
-You cry when you see him? -We cried when we saw you.
He didn't just want to be an artist manager.
He wanted to have an empire.
And he's made really strategic business decisions
to help make that happen.
I am Heather Wirth, and I was part of the 1989 Tour
with Taylor Swift as her personal assistant.
This is my official badge.
I was going from state to state, stadium to stadium,
hotel to hotel, driving her,
dealing with the paparazzi. [winces]
It's 24/7. It's always go time.
You know, if she needs you, you're there.
Taylor is very down to earth.
There's no fakeness to her.
Everything is very genuine, very real.
-[cameras flashing] -[paparazzi] Morning, Taylor. You look beautiful.
Everywhere she went, she would write down lyrics or thoughts or maybe ideas.
There was one time where I was traveling with her on her tour
and she was sitting in the back of her plane.
I could hear her just throwing words together.
And then basically in front of me,
she ended up writing...Ready For It.
When that song came out, I was like, I know that song.
She wrote that like, right next to me.
[fans screaming, cheering]
[Heather Wirth]It takes a while for Taylor to let her guard down.
When I worked with her, it took her a while with me.
-You wanted to get one? -[fan] Of course I do!
[Wirth] These tabloids, they twist things, constantly twisting it,
while all the paparazzi and everything.
[girl] Can you get me too?
At the end of the day, Taylor is just a normal person,
just like you and me.
[paparazzi shouting] Taylor! This side!
[Dr. Amelia Morris]She has experienced a lot of misogyny
in the ways that she was reduced down to who she was dating.
The tabloids would obsessively write about her.
She was positioned as the bunny boiler.
She's only going to date you so that she can write a song about you.
And this just reflects kind of the immense double standards
of the ways that famous musicians are spoken about.
She is not doing anything different to how artists
like The Beatles or Harry Styles have written about their romantic life,
but that's seen as cathartic
whereas Taylor Swift's songwriting is positioned
as weaponized victimhood.
There was a time where it was the butt of a lot of jokes.
Her dating life was seen as a punch line.
You seem to have had more than your fair share of breakups?
[laughs] Yeah, there have been a few.
Who are you seeing at the moment?
I don't really talk about that.
-I just kind of-- -Well, why not? What's wrong with it?
-Because-- [laughs] -[audience laughing]
There was kind of a cat and mouse element
to some of those early interviews.
She would just stop talking rather than say too much.
You think that you do maybe get into a relationship too readily?
Do you give too much of yourself too soon?
Would that be why this keeps happening?
I don't know why people think that. People think that about me.
That's like I think--
Because you've had so many [bleep] breakups. That's why.
[audience laughing]
[Brian Mansfield]When I would see people talking about,
"Oh, she's just going from guy to guy to guy,"
I knew that I wasn't seeing anything different
than when I was that age or when my wife was that age.
When I talked to her about relationships,
I don't think I saw how much hearing those things would have affected her.
I didn't realize that she was going through
a lot of the things that she was going through.
Taylor is someone who very much sticks to what she believes in.
She knows exactly who her audience is
and what she wants to present to them as a role model.
There are a lot of levels to how bad the music industry can be for people
and deep rooted sexism that she has faced in her career.
In 2013, she says that she was groped by a radio DJ called David Mueller
at a meet and greet and gets photographed.
She subsequently got him sacked from his job.
He sued her for $3 million and she countersued him,
saying it was essentially sexual assault.
And it went to trial.
She actually stood up and testified,
and a jury ruled in her favor,
and she asked that he pay her one dollar in damages
as a kind of symbolic result
because it was more important for her to win on the principle
rather than to get any money out of him.
And I think that tells you something about her tenaciousness,
but also about the fact that she is willing to fight people
who have done her wrong
and just makes her even more beloved in the eyes of her fans.
[Wood] The music industry runs on artists.
It also runs on managers orchestrating deals,
who are helping artists steer their careers.
And Scooter was very skilled at navigating superstardom
on behalf of his clients,
and saw clearly how to create pop superstars in a social media age.
I got to ask you. Kanye West, eight Grammy nominations.
How is he doing?
He's a fantastic individual, and I am blessed to call him my friend
and he's doing great.
[Wood] In 2016, Kanye has his song Famous
where there's a very inflammatory line in there
where he says that he might still have sex with Taylor Swift.
"Why? Because he made that bitch famous."
And so, you know, nobody wants to hear this rapped about them.
I mean, obviously, that's playing into all kinds of
misogynistic tropes about the music industry
that the only way Taylor got there
was because of who she had relationships with.
[Kanye West and crowd rapping] Southside [bleep] that know me best.
I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.
-Why? -[crowd] I made that [bleep] famous!
-[West] Goddamn. -[crowd] I made that [bleep] famous!
[West moans]
[Spanos] He ends up making a video for Famous
where Taylor, along with public figures
like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, are seen as sort of like,
these naked wax figures, basically all in bed together.
♪ All my Southside niggas that know me best ♪
♪ I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex ♪
♪ Why? I made that bitch famous ♪
♪ Goddamn I made that bitch famous ♪
This sets off everything.
Taylor immediately makes a public statement about it.
She's very upset about the line "and made that bitch famous".
She references it in her album of the year speech.
I want to say to all the young women out there,
there are going to be people along the way
who will try to undercut your success.
Or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.
[Wood] She's using this moment to sort of say, "Hey.
This is somebody trying to take away what I've built,
what I've created, and they're trying to
make you think something else is true."
[paparazzi] Stay with us, Taylor!
Kim Kardashian ends up posting to Snapchat
a secret recording of Kanye calling Taylor from his studio.
There was a controversy about whether these clips were edited
to show Taylor in a bad light.
And when the full recording comes out,
you can hear him asking permission to talk about her in the song.
It has a very controversial line
at the beginning of the song about you.
[Swift on phone]What does it say?
Okay. Can you brace yourself for a second?
-[Swift] Yeah. -Okay. All right. [chuckles]
It says-- Wait a second, you sound sad.
[Swift] Well, is it going to be mean?
No, I don't think it's mean.
"To all my Southside niggas that know me best.
I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex."
-[chuckles] -[Swift laughing]
- That's not mean. -Okay.
I mean, I need to think about it
because I just need to, like, you know,
you hear something for the first time
-and you just need to think about it. - Yeah.
[Swift] But like, oh my God, the buildup you gave it,
I thought it was gonna be like, "That stupid, dumb bitch."
Like, but it's not.
Now, the video doesn't show him asking for permission for the line, however,
that is, "I made that bitch famous",
which had been the source of a lot of Taylor's anger.
But regardless, having any sort of video footage
of Taylor proving any part of Famous was enough
for people to flood her Instagram with snake emojis.
For Kim and Kanye to call it a win for themselves.
For Taylor to be seen in a lesser light
than she'd ever been seen before.
This was the biggest controversy
that she had experienced in her career.
[actor reading]
[Tsjeng] At the time, hashtag KimExposedTaylor was trending on Twitter.
It had a really big impact on her mental health.
She moved countries.
She said she was afraid to pick up the phone
because she didn't know who she could trust.
This was a huge deal for her
I think psychologically and emotionally.
During this whole Famous saga,
when she was really affected by it,
Scooter Braun was managing Kanye.
It seems that Taylor viewed Scooter
as having something to do with Kanye's behavior.
Scooter was good at helping artists steer their careers.
Here's what you should do. Here's what you shouldn't do.
[Tsjeng] There's a big burst of publicity
from Kanye West's new album.
You know all publicity is good publicity, as the saying goes.
-[cameras flashing] -[crowd cheering]
In the documentaryMiss Americana, Taylor talks a little bit
about what this experience with Kanye had done for her reputation.
I'm just tired of the...
[shuddering breath] Just...
[sniffles]
[voice wavering] Just feels like it's more than music now at this point.
And just most days I'm like, okay,
but then sometimes I'm just like...
It just gets loud sometimes.
[Spanos] This very vivid way that she describes her own emotions,
allowing herself to give an intimate experience of her life,
to her fans and to people who follow her.
She's very upset about the public really hating her
and really not being on her side.
This was a period that she has found to be
one of the darkest in her life.
Her entire career was at stake,
where she felt like she might lose everything.
It wasn't unusual for news outlets
to be running stories like, "Taylor Swift is lying to you."
She was accused of constantly playing the victim to try and get sympathy and pity.
[paparazzi] Bieber! Justin!
[Wood] At some point, Justin Bieber gets involved, you know.
And there's this post where you sort of see him on a call with Scooter,
and then he's asking Taylor. "Hey, what's up?"
And then that just, for Taylor, it kind of reinforces this idea
that these guys are arrayed against her.
Justin has since apologized for his behavior,
but Taylor found it really traumatizing at the time.
[Richard Busch]Taylor's contract lasted 13 years,
so she was bound for 13 years
to deliver these six albums for Scott, the owner of Big Machine.
On behalf of Big Machine Records
and our partners, Universal Music Group Worldwide,
we are so proud to present to you this plaque.
You have to understand that when she signed the contract, she was a teenager.
So she wasn't the Taylor Swift we know now.
-Y'all want to hear some country music? -[audience cheering]
And so the recognition should be that
that I signed a deal when I was a teenager, when I was nobody.
But I have become on the level of Michael Jackson,
you know, Elvis, Eminem.
[cameraman] All right, guys. Look right here.
[Busch] Think of music as having different components
and different parties oftentimes own those different rights.
The songwriter owns the publishing the moment he or she writes the song.
Generally speaking, the record label owns the master sound recording.
When you own your own master recordings,
it's protecting what you've created,
the ability to say no.
She wanted a fair deal from Big Machine.
She wanted to get her master's back.
[Wood] Taylor comes to Scott Borchetta and says,
"Hey, I'd like to own my masters."
Borchetta says, according to the story here,
"All right. Well, how about this?
We'll do a deal where you make another album for me,
and then I'll give you the rights back to your old albums.
And then we'll do it like that.
You make several more album and then you'll own your old ones again."
[Busch] She's already been basically a slave to them for 13 years.
She's delivered six of the biggest albums of all time,
and they were using her desire to get her recordings back
as some type of pressure point
...to get more recordings from her.
So Taylor leaves Big Machine and goes to UMG Republic,
Universal Music Republic,
where she strikes a deal where she owns her masters.
Why they didn't just sell her the masters, period,
without any strings attached?
That's a question for them.
[Anna] The music industry is very much a boys club.
All the top executives, the people who have
the most money and the most power
are overwhelmingly white and male.
I think it is a very misogynistic industry.
I'd always known about Scooter Braun,
but in 2021, he sold his business to HYBE for a billion dollars.
and I was like, "Wow, that's a lot of money."
But it wasn't until I started looking into him
that I realized just how much power
and influence and money he had.
I was really excited to write the piece.
I don't think there have been any other
deep-dive investigations into Scooter and his empire.
We spoke to over 50 entertainment insiders
who'd worked with Scooter.
People were nervous to speak on the record.
I think people are quite intimidated by Scooter,
and a lot of people would only speak
if they were able to be anonymous.
Scooter has always taken pains to present himself
as this really good guy,
this philanthropist, this family man.
But what we heard over and over again
was that Scooter is one of the most ruthless people in the business.
[Scooter] A year ago, I'm not going to say names
but another manager in the business
said I was the worst music manager in the music business
And it didn't bother me because he's an asshole.
[paparazzi cheering]
[Anna] Around the time that Scooter's client,
Ariana Grande was dating Pete Davidson
and his other client, Justin Bieber,
was engaged to Hailey Baldwin,
someone tweeted, "The devil works hard,
but Scooter Braun works harder."
It was in reference to the fact
that Scooter seemed to have
such vast influence over pop culture
that two of the biggest news stories in the world
were about his clients.
He's known for being really good at playing the press
and shaping the media narrative.
[Zing] When Taylor publishes that first Tumblr post
in June 2019, she seems genuinely in crisis.
[reading] "My musical legacy is about to lie in the hands
of someone who tried to dismantle it."
[Zing] You can tell reading it
that she is in kind of freefall about this.
This has happened to her masters.
Scooter Braun now owns them because he's successfully
completed his purchase of Big Machine, her former label.
[reading] "Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words
'Scooter Braun' escape my lips,
it was when I was either crying or trying not to."
[Zing] And she goes on to say
that this is the worst case scenario for her
because the person that she describes as having
manipulatively bullied her for years,
is now essentially owning her work.
[reading]"Like when Kim Kardashian
orchestrated an illegally-recorded snippet
of a phone call to be leaked
and then Scooter got his two clients together
to bully me online about it."
[Mikael] She uses this screenshot
that Justin Bieber had put up on social media,
of him kind of laughing it up with Kanye and Scooter
as kind of evidence that here I've been bullied
by all these guys, but specifically by Scooter.
[reporter] Being at Billboard's power event,
tell me about your biggest power move from 2019?
Our biggest power move
is my new partner, Scooter Braun, with Ithaca.
So we're having a great time, and It's pretty powerful.
[Brittany] Scott Borchetta spoke out about the deal
at the time and the success that it was.
There are a lot of aspects of this,
where it does come down to a woman who trusted a man
who would sign her to his label
and promised her this great career
and being ultimately betrayed by him.
[paparazzi shouting indistinctly]
He was someone, who for a very long time,
seemed like her biggest advocate.
You didn't see it coming?
No.
So how did you find out?
I found out when it was online.
Like when it hit the news.
Nobody in your inner circle...
Nobody knew.
I knew he would sell my music. I knew he would do that.
I couldn't believe who he sold it to
because we've had endless conversations
about Scooter Braun, and he has 300,000,000 reasons
to conveniently forget those conversations.
[Brittany] For Taylor, I think it was a very personal betrayal.
I feel like there are probably aspects of it
we won't understand about
why Scott Borchetta chose to work with Scooter
other than money, other than a very large paycheck.
[Alex] Regardless of how the industry is set up,
where you know, you get funding
to be able to make that career happen.
At the end of the day, the thought that your soul
can then be sold to someone else.
It's like The Little Mermaid.
It's like having your voice taken from you.
[Heather]There were many times
where I did feel sorry for her,
Because not having those rights,
that's heartbreaking.
You come up with something so awesome,
then you should be able to keep it.
No matter how much you want control of things,
there's always going to be the big guy, the Man.
That song "The Man"?
That... is 100% spot on.
She was trying to say that if she was a man,
that she would be able to have more control.
♪ I'd be a fearless leader ♪
♪ I'd be an alpha type ♪
♪ When everyone believes ya ♪
♪ What's that like? ♪
[Mikael] The Man video is full of veiled references to this whole thing.
It's pretty hard to view it as anything but a response
to how she feels like she's been treated as a businesswoman
and as a pop star throughout her entire career.
Women are the engine of the music industry.
That's who generates the most excitement.
That's who sells the most records.
That's who sells the most concert tickets.
And yet, the music industry is like many industries,
generally run by men.
[Brittany] In the months following, of course,
Taylor is rolling out her album Lover
and it's a big topic of conversation
when she is talking to the press.
And one thing that comes up in a lot of those interviews
is what she plans to do.
Taylor playsGood Morning America.
You know, TV Show.
And then in the interview with Robin Roberts,
tells the world that she's going to start
re-recording her early albums,
[all cheering]
-[Robin] Are you going to do that? -Yeah, that's true.
And it's something that I'm very excited about doing
because my contract says that, starting November 2020,
so next year, I can record albums
1 through 5 all over again so...
Oh, you'll do that.
I'm very excited about it.
[Dr. Amelia]When she first announces
that she is going to re-record her albums,
there was a lot of questions
around whether this was even achievable.
It's an astronomical project,
and there was an atmosphere of disbelief amongst the media
or that this would be a real failed vanity project.
There is a standard agreement in record labels historically,
that prevents re-recording of recordings
you deliver to the record label.
She had the right after the re-recording commitment expired
to re-record her music,
but she couldn't re-record her masters before 2020.
when that re-recording prohibition terminated.
And Scooter, I believe, was still coming very wealthy
off of her work in an unfair way.
Later in 2019, Taylor sort of tells the world that...
...she has been barred from performing some of her old music
on the American Music Awards.
[reading] "Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun
have now said that I'm not allowed
to perform my old songs on television
because they claim that would be re-recording my music
before I'm allowed to next year."
"Scott Borchetta told my team
they'll allow me to use my music
only if I do these things:
If I agree to not re-record
copycat versions of my songs next year...
...and also told my team
that I need to stop talking about him and Scooter Braun.
[Zing] She goes on to say that
my songs are being held hostage
and I feel like I'm being punished for speaking out
about this whole Taylor-Scooter saga.
Saying that the message to her is very clear:
"Be a good girl and shut up."
From Taylor's perspective,
Scooter wanted to control a woman
through the use and ownership of her masters.
And this is an important moment
because this is where she sort of,
as she says it, turns to her fans "for help."
It was one of those moments
where I suddenly was like, "I know what I can do.
I will fix this for her."
It was another challenge where it just felt like, "What is enough?"
When can she finally win without facing
all of these hills that she has to climb over?
I think fans really united around. Like, a #IStandWithTaylor
is a big way of letting people know
like, you're not going to push her around.
[Zing] The IStandWithTaylor hashtag starts trending,
female musicians start posting about it,
and it becomes this whole kind of a big moment
where Taylor is defining the story
of what the masters dispute is about.
It's about, um, a woman having the nerve
to speak out and being shouted down.
It's about, uh, men controlling women's artistic output.
It sets this-this real kind of moment in time for her to be
the David in the David versus Goliath story.
It's now about a woman trying to have creative control
versus an entire music industry
that is not set up to support women.
[male narrator]First up, it's Taylor Swift.
All eyes are gonna be on the pop star
at tonight's American Music Awards,
where she's slated to record a medley of her greatest hits.
Taylor opens the AMA's with the performance of "The Man."
She turns up wearing this oversized men's white shirt
with the names of all her albums plastered on it.
-[audience cheering]-And it is a big pointed statement.
♪ I'm so sick of running as fast as I can♪
[audience cheering]
♪ Wonderin' if I'd get there Quicker if I was a man♪
You know, it's about a woman who is being controlled
artistically by men in the music industry.
And the albums are kind of like shout-out to the fact
that these are the albums that are currently in dispute.
So It's kind of a visual masterstroke because it's turning this
contractual boardroom fight
into something much much bigger, which is about feminism.
It's about young girls.
She's starting up on stage,
and being empowered and being able to make choices
about what they do with their work, their lives, their careers.
[audience cheering]
♪ And I'm so sick of them Comin' at me again♪
♪ 'Cause if I was a man♪
♪ Then I'd be the man♪
♪ I'd be the man♪
♪ I'd be the man, yeah♪
♪ 'Cause I'd be the man♪
♪ I'd be the man♪
[Alex]I think we all can deduce
who she was singing to in that moment.
It was a moment for her
to stand on her two feet
after she had gotten permission to perform this music.
And assert her power very publicly.
[crowd speaking indistinctly]
[Zack]But she was not able, really, to express that moral outrage
without kind of catching the same old, boring,
like, misogynistic critique of, well,
you are being too loud or you're being too annoying
or you're feeling too much in public,
and that's kind of the whole Taylor Swift experience.
The most rage-provoking element of being a female is...
is the gaslighting that happens when,
you know, for centuries we've been just expected
to absorb male behavior silently. Right?
-Silent absorption of whatever any guy decides to do. -Yeah.
She has spoken out to Aaron Dessner, her producer,
about the way that women are not allowed
to have a kind of response
to an emotional situation without being viewed as the villain.
[Taylor] There's been situations with,
recently with somebody who's-who's very guilty
of this in my life, and it's a person who makes me feel,
or tries to make me feel like I'm the offender
by having any kind of defense...
-Yeah. -...to his offenses. It's like...
"Oh, I have absolutely no right to respond or I'm crazy.
I have no right to respond or I'm angry.
-I have no right to respond or I'm out of line." -[Aaron] Yeah.
She's talking about how she's been framed
to a certain kind of characterization
that she feels, like, isn't exactly accurate,
but this is what happens to women who speak their mind.
[female reporter]Good morning to you guys.
It was an early birthday present for Taylor Swift,
who turns 30 today.
She accepted Billboard's first-ever
"Woman of the Decade" award at an event in Los Angeles.
And the pop star didn't hold back in her speech.
[Alex]That speech that she gave was such a strong moment.
She spoke up in front of a room of his peers
to show that she wasn't scared.
That is an act of vulnerability.
She is being vulnerable about that moment
and how hurtful it was.
She told you exactly what she's feeling,
and she's letting you know that, like...
Let's go.
And let me just say that the definition
of the toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying...
"But he's always been nice to me,"
when I'm raising valid concerns about artists
and their rights to own their music.
And, of course he's nice to you.
If you're in this room, you have something he needs.
The fact is that private equity is what enabled this man to think,
according to his own social media post,
that he could "buy me."
But I'm obviously not going willingly.
Over the course of the months following,
there was more kind of drama unfolding
behind the scenes as she was trying to,
basically, get back control of her music.
And she alleges that she was blocked from buying this music
that means so much to her.
[photographers clamoring]
[Zack] According to Taylor, in the process of trying to buy back
her master recordings from Scooter Braun,
she wasn't even allowed to see the financials of the deal
before she would sign an NDA,
basically saying that she would never say
anything bad about Scooter Braun ever again.
By now, you've probably heard about this.
Taylor Swift Scooter Braun drama.
Variety reported this week
that Scooter Braun's company, Ithaca Holdings,
recently sold the master rights
to the pop star's first six albums
to an investment firm for more than $300,000,000.
[Zing] It went everywhere.
Every single news outlet covered it.
Scooter Braun sold Big Machine on to another private equity firm,
but with the caveat that he would still keep profiting
from Taylor's masters. Like, that is a specific clause
that he demanded to be included.
[Brittany] Taylor had posted her own statement
in response to this, talking about her disgust
that she had tried to negotiate with Scooter to buy back her masters.
And so, therefore, it was another set of hands
that were now in control of Taylor's music.
[reading]"As soon as we started communication with Shamrock,
I learned that under their terms,
Scooter Braun will continue to profit
off my old musical catalog for many years."
[Richard]Scooter Braun continued to share in revenue
under his deal with Shamrock,
even going forward.
That was a big deal for her.
Taylor actually addressed Shamrock
in one of her posts, saying that, you know,
I would have been happy to work with you
with respect to my recordings. But...
what has happened is so unfair.
I'm going to be re recording my original recordings.
[reading]"I know this will diminish the value of my old masters,
but I hope you understand that this is the only way
to regain the sense of pride I once had
when hearing songs from my first six albums,
and also allowing my fans to listen to those albums
without feelings of guilt for benefiting Scooter."
There was kind of a conversation started amongst fans themselves
when this happened about whether it was truly ethical
to be listening to her old work at all at this point.
Because the theory goes
that you are indirectly lining Scooter's pockets
and adding to the insult of Taylor,
by continuing to stream this music.
[crowd clamoring]
[Alex]I think Taylor has shown throughout her entire career
that in the face of any adversity,
do not think that you can outwit or outsmart or outplay her.
She has shown so many times
that she will stand up for what's right.
[Mikael] She's turned it into a moral battle.
She made everybody look at what was right.
It's about Taylor Swift's right
to be in charge of her legacy.
[Zing] It's turning this contractual boardroom fight
into something much bigger,
which is about feminism. It's about women's rights.
It's about artistic women
being able to have control over what they produced.
When push comes to shove,
Taylor is really not afraid of taking a stand,
and she is willing to pursue it to the very last avenue.
[man] Legally, Scooter had the absolute right
to buy this asset.
The truth didn't matter.
She had the ability to rally her fans.
[woman] Tell Scott and Scooter how you feel.
Well, if you know Taylor Swift's fan base,
one could imagine any number of reactions.
When it gets to a place where there's death threats,
I just think it's got out of hand.
♪ I tell my soul♪
♪ Only love forgives♪
♪ Tell my soul♪
♪ Only love forgives♪
♪ Tell my soul♪
♪ My soul ♪
♪ Only love, Only love forgives♪