Ben Gilbert: uncertainty

Transcript context

…She definitely does. They even published what looks like some screenshots of legal document going back and forth and having proposed changes. It seems like from those, what Big Machine is angling for is, if you signed with us for, they want 10 years, Taylor says 7, then by staying with us, you earn back the rights to all your masters. If you stay with us through this second term, then the masters from your first term become yours. There's no way to know what the economic splits were or any of the other terms of this agreement. We don't even have it substantiated that that screenshot that Big Machine decided to put out is real. But what we do know is that Big Machine was willing to let her have her masters from the first six albums if she signed with them again and we don't know what the terms were. She signs with Republic Records, which is another Universal sub-label, and specifically, it's Universal's pop sub-label. Now, this makes tons of sense. Big Machine is a country label and independently owned but in the Universal ecosystem. Republic is a pop label. This really is what makes sense. Not only that, but Taylor and Big Machine had been working super closely with Republic to get all of Taylor's songs that when they wanted pop radio play to get on pop radio stations, Republic was the one handling that because obviously, Big Machine didn't have those relationships. When this is all announced, it's very amicable, at least that's what this is presented as. Taylor is staying in the Universal family.…

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