Pharrell Williams is weighing in.
The 47-year-old “Happy” music superstar spoke about Taylor Swift‘s ongoing battle with Scooter Braun over the rights to her masters in an interview with Variety.
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Taylor Swift
“There’s no other industry out there in the world where a start-up gets off the ground and doesn’t own the trademark — it just doesn’t make sense. It may be legal, but it’s still a crime. If a bank walks away with ownership of a company and the trademark, how much should a creator really be participating? The artist should always have the lion’s share of their creation,” he said of the imperative for artists to retain rights of their music.
“It’s really unfortunate, you know. There was room for [Scooter] to make his acquisition because that’s just the way the business is, and I felt for [Taylor] and not being able to be in control of it. There’s a system in place that’s just all wrong. He’s a businessman and he also represents artists, so from his point of view he’s just making an acquisition of something that he felt would be a good investment. But the artist should have the opportunity [to retain ownership], and I don’t know whether she did or she didn’t,” he said.
“I just know that the system is wired in ways that is oftentimes not always fair to the creator. I think it should be the norm that the creators retain their rights.”
At the same time, it was recently revealed that Scooter Braun sold Taylor Swift‘s masters to another entity.
Source: Read Full Article
