BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – NOVEMBER 09: EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO BOOK COVERS. Taylor Swift performs … More
Taylor Swift is now the sole owner of her masters after a six-year fight to reclaim her first six albums. The Grammy-winning artist announced via a letter on her website on Friday, May 30, that she has bought back her music catalog from Shamrock Capital. The amount she paid to purchase her life’s work has not been disclosed.
“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 carrot dangled then yanked away. But that’s all in the past now,” Swift penned in a handwritten letter.
“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,” she continued, revealing that she now has ownership of all her music videos, concert films, album art, photography and unreleased songs.
In June 2019, Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Records in a massive $300 million deal. Swift’s catalog, which included her six albums: Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation, was believed to be worth about $140 million, Variety reported.
On June 30, 2019, Swift penned a Tumblr post stating that she learned about Braun’s “purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world.” She also labeled him a “bully” and “the definition of toxic male privilege in our industry.”
Then, in 2020, Braun’s Ithaca Holdings sold Swift’s masters to Shamrock Capital for $300 million. At the time, Swift said in a X (formerly Twitter) post that her team had received a letter a few weeks prior from Shamrock – the private equity firm founded by Roy Disney – notifying her that it had acquired her first six albums from Braun.
“This is the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge,” Swift said in the post at the time. According to Swift, Shamrock said that before the sale, Braun required that the firm make no contact with her or her team, or the deal would not go ahead.
Kelly Clarkson was one of the first to suggest that Swift reclaim her music by re-recording her masters. “I’d run into Kelly Clarkson and she would go, ‘Just redo it,’” Swift recalled in her Time Person of the Year profile. “My dad kept saying it to me too. I’d look at them and go, ‘How can I possibly do that?’ Nobody wants to redo their homework if on the way to school, the wind blows your book report away.”
The 33-year-old ultimately decided to re-record her first six albums, adding “Taylor’s Version” to each title so fans could distinguish the new versions from the originals. She also signed a historic deal with Universal Music Group that granted her full ownership over her songwriting and recordings, significantly boosting her long-term earnings.
Swift’s re-recorded albums – Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) – all debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and proved to be incredibly profitable.
Forbes officially named Swift a billionaire in October 2023. While an estimated $500 million of her fortune came from music royalties and touring, the other half was attributed to the rising value of her music catalog – making her one of the few musicians to achieve billionaire status through music alone.
So, what about Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) and Reputation (Taylor’s Version), the final re-recordings fans have been eagerly waiting to hear?
“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,” she explained.
The artist continued, “Not the music, or 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 album, and I really love how it sounds now.”
Swift revealed that those two 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.”
Read Swift’s full letter here.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicamercuri/2025/05/30/taylor-swift-buys-back-her-masters-and-reveals-the-fate-of-reputation-tv/