Taylor Swift Has Bought Back The Rights To Her First Six Albums

Taylor Swift has officially bought back her master recordings, reclaiming her first six albums. The rights were initially purchased by Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in late 2020, which were then purchased by private equity firm Shamrock Capital. According to a report from Billboard, Shamrock sold the catalog back to Swift for an amount that was close to what they initially paid for it, estimated to be around $360 million.

Back in 2019, when Ithaca purchased Big Machine Label Group (which has previously released all of Swift’s albums from her debut up to Reputation), she had voiced displeasure about the fact that she did not own her masters. In 2019, Swift began to re-record all of her albums in order to restore control over all of her songs.

Since then, she has released fully re-recorded versions, under the title of “Taylor’s Version” of Fearless (2021), Red (2021), Speak Now (2023), and 1989 (2023). In that same time, she has released five additional albums of completely original material: Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), Evermore (2020), Midnights (2022), and the double album The Tortured Poets Department (2024).

Swift has released a letter on her website about the reclaiming of her masters, as well as updates on the re-recordings for Reputation and Taylor Swift.

Main Photo: Taylor Swift performing in Santa Clara, CA // Main Photo Credit: Jared Stossel for Shameless SF/Staff.

“Hi.

I’m trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent but right now my mind is just a slideshow. A flashback sequence of all the times I daydreamed about, wished for, and pined away for a chance to get to tell you this news. All the times I was thiiiiiiiiiiiiis close, reaching out for it, only for it to fall through. I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carror dangled and then yanked away. But that’s all in the past now. I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words.

All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me.

And all my music videos.
All the concert films.
The album art and photography.
The unreleased songs.
The memories. The magic. The madness.
Every single era.
My entire life’s work.

To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it. To my fans, you know how important this has been to me - so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released 4 of my albums, calling them Taylor’s Version. The passionate support you showed those albums and the success story you turned the Eras Tour into is why I was able to buy back my music. I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.

All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy. I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me. The way they’ve handled every interaction we’ve had has been honest, fair, and respectful. This was a business deal to them, but I really felt like they saw it for what it was to me: My memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams. I am endlessly thankful. My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.

I know, I know. What about Rep TV? Full transparency: I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it. The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it. All that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposely misunderstood, that desperate hope, that shame-born snarl and mischief. To be perfectly honest, it’s the one album in those first 6 that I thought couldn’t be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or the photos, or videos. So I kept putting it off. There will be a time (if you’re into the idea) for the unreleased Vault tracks from that album to hatch. I’ve already completely re-recorded my entire debut album, and I really love how it sounds now. Those 2 albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.

I’m extremely heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry among artists and fans. Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen. Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion. You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every singtle bit of it counted and ended us up here.

Thanks to you and your goodwill, teamwork, and encouragement, the best things that have ever been mine… finally actually are.

Elated and amazed,

Taylor”