In a recent interview with Anne Steele of the Wall Street Journal, James Sammataro commented on the increasingly public fight between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun, who according to Swift, is making it difficult to freely perform the hits from her masters catalog.
According to WSJ, "Ms. Swift asked her fans to rally for her ability to use music from her catalog in a coming televised awards show and a Netflix documentary. On Friday, Big Machine Label Group, which controls rights to her first six albums, denied her statements, calling them shocking and false...(T)he tussle has brought new attention to master-recording rights, which have become an increasingly contentious issue in the era of streaming."
In response, Sammataro, partner and co-chair of Pryor Cashman's Media + Entertainment group noted that, "It is none of the parties' financial interests to decline commercially reasonable licensing opportunities, or to have Taylor's back catalog collect dust... Scooter Braun's financial bet only pays off if the old masters are fully exploited, and a Netflix documentary would seemingly be a good showcase from which to generate new fans and more streams."
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