The feud between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun continues. The Lover singer has had a longstanding dispute with her former manager Braun and Big Machine Records, which holds the rights to her first six albums and that squabble has seemingly escalated yet again. Swift posted a long-ish message to her Instagram Story earlier today, addressing a planned live album taken from recordings from 2008 scheduled for release tonight/tomorrow at midnight.
In the message, Swift thanks her fans for bringing the planned release to her attention and rebuked Big Machine for applying some legal trickery to the recording to circumvent the terms of her deal. According to Taylor, “This recording is from a 2008 radio show performance I did when I was 18. Big Machine has listed the date as a 2017 release but they’re actually releasing it tonight at midnight.”
Swift asserts that “this release is not approved me,” and accuses Braun, Big Machine, and Big Machine’s financial backers of trying to avoid paying her fairly for the recording — to the tune of $330 million. She calls the move “just another case of shameless greed in the time of coronavirus. So tasteless, but very transparent.”
.@TaylorSwift13 says her former label is releasing an album of live performances from 2008 TONIGHT without her approval:
“Just another case of shameless greed in the time of Coronavirus. So tasteless, but very transparent.” pic.twitter.com/hDSDJA3pYF
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) April 23, 2020
Swift has previously called the ongoing quarrel with her old label “manipulative bullying,” accusing Braun of preventing her from playing her old songs live while Big Machine’s representatives insist that they have never made any such claims. The tiff has gotten so bad that Taylor even announced plans to re-record her old songs just so that should would own the masters.