bclemms
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In the speech, Taylor complains that women have to overcome so much more than men in the music industry. That they have critics that discuss quality of voice, who she is dating, whether she is writing her songs and even critics that discuss her music. She later goes on to discuss how women have dominated the music industry the last decade and attributes that dominance to women working so much harder to get there.
This all leads up to the point where she calls out a team of investors that purchased the rights to her first 6 albums and everything that surrounds them. This wasn't just Swift's songs but a rather large collection of music from numerous artists. She calls out George Soros and the investors as having "toxic male priviledge" because they bought the collections of several female artists. Taylor has been outspoken about it, has refused to quit performing the songs that she doesn't own the copyright to and her fans have responded with mass death threats to Soros, his family and those of the investors. Despite this, Taylor continues to be outspoken.
I'm not a musician but as someone that is a content creator we have the same basic rights and ways to earn a living. I'm approached at least a dozen times a year by people wanting to either buy my video library or sign me to an exclusive contract. These offerings look like a big chunk of money, sometimes they offer me what it takes me a couple years to make. It's very tempting but at the end of the day I know they are offering this because it's an investment and they plan to make more money off the residual sales than what I'm being paid. They are also taking a risk because they may not make more money off of those sales. On the flip side, I have the right to choose whether I want to take the lump some or hold on to my work. I may make more, I may make less. Unfortunately for me, this isn't even 1% of the scale on the Taylor Swift Financial outcome. I've never sold a single piece of video for exclusive rights. I've turned down huge sums to hold my copyright and will continue to do so unless some absurd number comes along.
The dream for musicians for the longest time was to get signed by a record label. It was that moment where a struggling band or musician would be infused with money, better equipment, better managers, better support on and behind the scenes. The amount of marketing that went into a musicians work after being signed was thousand fold and then you hit the jackpot with the best recording studios and producers. You had groups of highly talented professionals to guide you through each note, each lyric to try and make albums explode. The big thing though, was getting that music into the hands of radio stations and music television stations. When Taylor was first signed at 16 and went from young girl who could sing to really wealthy international superstar there were no complaints from her. She was very happy to sign the contract and make all the money. 15 years later when she is one of the wealthiest women on the planet it's suddenly a problem that she signed the contract that put her in the position she is in today and now wants the rights to her music back. I understand that she wanted the right to buy her music back and she wasn't given that opportunity. I also understand that if a record label is for sale that it becomes much harder to sell if you start removing rights to a huge portion of the labels earnings. At no point did Taylor try to buy the whole label. In other words, take someone like Taylor's music out of the transaction it kills the whole deal.
So is Taylor using women's right movement to try and obtain financial gain? Treating music like a commodity dates back centuries and has impacted both men and women for a very long time. So is George Soros and the investors buying the music using Toxic Male Priviledge because this transaction includes a few women or is Taylor using the movement for financial gain?
I personally didn't care for Taylor claiming that music critics are a women only problem. Try telling Nickelback, every boy band ever, Justin Bieber, Vanilla Ice and so many others that music critics are a female only problem.
Anyway, thought this would make an interesting debate. Here is the speech.
This all leads up to the point where she calls out a team of investors that purchased the rights to her first 6 albums and everything that surrounds them. This wasn't just Swift's songs but a rather large collection of music from numerous artists. She calls out George Soros and the investors as having "toxic male priviledge" because they bought the collections of several female artists. Taylor has been outspoken about it, has refused to quit performing the songs that she doesn't own the copyright to and her fans have responded with mass death threats to Soros, his family and those of the investors. Despite this, Taylor continues to be outspoken.
I'm not a musician but as someone that is a content creator we have the same basic rights and ways to earn a living. I'm approached at least a dozen times a year by people wanting to either buy my video library or sign me to an exclusive contract. These offerings look like a big chunk of money, sometimes they offer me what it takes me a couple years to make. It's very tempting but at the end of the day I know they are offering this because it's an investment and they plan to make more money off the residual sales than what I'm being paid. They are also taking a risk because they may not make more money off of those sales. On the flip side, I have the right to choose whether I want to take the lump some or hold on to my work. I may make more, I may make less. Unfortunately for me, this isn't even 1% of the scale on the Taylor Swift Financial outcome. I've never sold a single piece of video for exclusive rights. I've turned down huge sums to hold my copyright and will continue to do so unless some absurd number comes along.
The dream for musicians for the longest time was to get signed by a record label. It was that moment where a struggling band or musician would be infused with money, better equipment, better managers, better support on and behind the scenes. The amount of marketing that went into a musicians work after being signed was thousand fold and then you hit the jackpot with the best recording studios and producers. You had groups of highly talented professionals to guide you through each note, each lyric to try and make albums explode. The big thing though, was getting that music into the hands of radio stations and music television stations. When Taylor was first signed at 16 and went from young girl who could sing to really wealthy international superstar there were no complaints from her. She was very happy to sign the contract and make all the money. 15 years later when she is one of the wealthiest women on the planet it's suddenly a problem that she signed the contract that put her in the position she is in today and now wants the rights to her music back. I understand that she wanted the right to buy her music back and she wasn't given that opportunity. I also understand that if a record label is for sale that it becomes much harder to sell if you start removing rights to a huge portion of the labels earnings. At no point did Taylor try to buy the whole label. In other words, take someone like Taylor's music out of the transaction it kills the whole deal.
So is Taylor using women's right movement to try and obtain financial gain? Treating music like a commodity dates back centuries and has impacted both men and women for a very long time. So is George Soros and the investors buying the music using Toxic Male Priviledge because this transaction includes a few women or is Taylor using the movement for financial gain?
I personally didn't care for Taylor claiming that music critics are a women only problem. Try telling Nickelback, every boy band ever, Justin Bieber, Vanilla Ice and so many others that music critics are a female only problem.
Anyway, thought this would make an interesting debate. Here is the speech.
