Scooter Braun Says He Would Handle Taylor Swift Catalog Acquisition Differently Now – Pitchfork

In 2019, music executive Scooter Braun bought master rights to Taylor Swift’s debut albums after acquiring her former label, Big Machine Label Group. That decision, which Swift called a “worst-case scenario,” led the pop star to re-record her music. Now, Braun has shared her take on the acquisition in a new interview with NPR. In a podcast episode Limits with Jay Williams, Braun explained his “regrets” about how the situation was handled. Watch the episode below.

When asked if he would have handled things differently with Swift, Braun replied, “Yeah, I would have. I learned an important lesson. He went on to explain, “I think when you have a conflict with someone, it’s very hard to resolve it if you’re not willing to have a conversation. So the regret I have there is that I assumed that everyone, once the deal was done, was going to have a conversation with me, see my intent, see my character and say, great, let’s do business together. And I made that assumption with people I didn’t know.

Brown continued:

I think in any conflict you can say I did nothing. It’s their fault. And you might be right. You might be justified. And you could say, it’s unfair, I’m being treated unfairly, or you can say, OK, I’m being treated unfairly. I don’t like how it does. I can’t solve this problem, so how am I going to watch it and learn from it? And I didn’t appreciate how it all happened. I thought that was unfair. But I also understand, on the other side, that they probably thought it was unfair too. So I chose to view it as a lesson in learning, a lesson in growth, and I wish everyone involved good luck. And I encourage everyone to win because I don’t believe in rooting for people to lose.