Taylor Swift buys back her master recordings after 6-year dispute: 'My music belongs to me now'

American singer Taylor Swift has bought back the rights to her first six albums, ending a long-running battle over ownership of her music.

"Every song I've ever made belongs to me now," the star said, announcing the news on her official website. "I've been crying tears of joy... ever since I found out this is actually happening."

The saga began in June 2019, when music entrepreneur Scooter Braun purchased Swift's former record label, Big Machine, and with it, all of Taylor Swift 's music, Fearless , Speak Now , Red , 1989 and Reputation .

Swift had personal objections to the deal, blaming Braun for complicity in what she called "incessant and manipulative bullying " against her by singer Kanye West, one of the businessman's clients.

On her website, the singer said that regaining the rights to her songs seemed, for a long time, something "unimaginable".

"To say this is my biggest dream come true is actually being quite restrained about it," she added, thanking fans for their support as the drama unfolded.

"I can't thank you enough for helping me reunite with the art I've dedicated my life to but never owned until now," Swift said.

"I almost stopped believing this could happen," she wrote.

"But that's all in the past now."

In the music industry, the owner of a master recording controls how it is distributed and licensed.

The artist still receives royalties (amounts paid for the use of the songs) but controlling the masters offers protection over how the work is used in the future.

'Reputation (Taylor's Version)' postponed?

Swift responded to the previous sale of her masters by promising to re-record those albums, effectively decreasing the value of those tapes and putting ownership back in her hands.

To date, she has released four re-recorded albums—known as Taylor's Versions —with dozens of bonus tracks and supplemental material.

In her letter, the star told fans she was not yet finished with the project, after "hitting a breaking point" while trying to remake her 2017 album Reputation — which dealt with public scrutiny of her private life and the fallout from her feud with Kanye West.

"The Reputation album was so specific to that moment in my life," she explained. "All that rebellion, that desire to be understood while purposefully feeling misunderstood..."

"To be perfectly honest, it's the only album out of those first six that I didn't think could be improved by remaking it... so I kept putting it off."

Last week, the star previewed a new version of Reputation 's first single, Look What You Made Me Do , on an episode of TV series The Handmaid's Tale — but her letter suggests a full re-recording would be delayed or even scrapped.

However, she promised that " vault tracks" from the album would be released at a later date if fans were "into the idea".

She also confirmed that she has re-recorded her self-titled debut album, adding: "I really love how it sounds now."

"These two albums may still have their moments to resurface when the time is right," he added. "But if it does, it won't be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I had. Right now, it will just be a celebration."

What is a master recording?

As the name suggests, a master recording is the original recorded performance of a song. Whoever owns it controls all the exploitation rights to the song.

This includes distributing it to streaming services, pressing new physical CDs and vinyl, creating a special collection, or licensing music for movies or video games.

Swift, as a songwriter or co-writer of her songs, has always retained her publishing rights, which meant she could veto attempts to license songs like Shake It Off and Love Story to other companies.

"I want my music to live on. I want it to be in movies. I want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it," she told Billboard in 2019.

It is not known how much it cost Swift to acquire her masters, but the catalog was previously sold for $300 million (R$1.7 billion) in 2020.

The BBC has learned that rumors that she paid between $600 million and $1 billion (R$3.4 billion and R$5.7 billion) are wildly exaggerated.

When 14-year-old Taylor Swift moved to Nashville in 2004 to pursue her dream of becoming a country pop star, she signed a recording contract with Big Machine.

Label boss Scott Borchetta gave the unknown singer a large cash advance in exchange for ownership of the master recordings of her first six albums "in perpetuity."

This was a fairly common practice in the pre- streaming era, when artists needed the support of record labels to get radio play and to manufacture and distribute CDs.

Swift's contract with Big Machine expired in 2018, at which point she left the label and signed a new deal with Republic Records and Universal Music Group (UMG).

A year later, Borchetta sold Big Machine to Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings.

Swift said she only learned of the settlement when it was announced; characterizing it as an act of aggression that "stripped me of my life's work."

She labeled Braun — who rose to prominence as the manager of singers Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande — as "the definition of toxic male privilege in our industry."

She also expressed frustration at not being able to make a counteroffer for her work.

"I spent ten years of my life trying to buy my masters directly and then I was denied that opportunity," she told Billboard, adding, "Artists should perhaps have the right of first refusal to buy [their own works]."

Braun later told Variety that the dispute had "spun out of control" after he and his family received death threats.

The music mogul in November 2020 sold his stake in Swift's back catalog to Shamrock Holdings, a Los Angeles investment fund founded by the Disney family in 1978.

The multi-million dollar deal left Swift feeling betrayed all over again.

"This is the second time my music has been sold without my knowledge," she said in a social media post.

Although she was "open to the possibility of a partnership with Shamrock," she later learned that under the terms of the sale, Braun "would continue to profit from my old music" for years.

"I simply cannot in good conscience engage in furthering Scooter Braun's interests," she wrote in a letter to the company, which she posted on X (formerly Twitter).

She went on to release her re-recorded albums in 2021, starting with her coming-of-age breakthrough album, Fearless .

Produced with painstaking attention to detail, they were often indistinguishable from the originals — albeit with slightly cleaner mixes and greater separation between instruments.

But the big draw was the bonus tracks, including the full 10-minute version of her breakup ballad All Too Well — described by Variety as the "holy grail" of the star's catalog.

The song reached number one on the US charts and number three in the UK — where it is the longest-running song to reach the top five.

Meanwhile, the singer continued to release original material, including the Grammy-winning albums Folklore and Midnights .

In 2023, Forbes magazine reported that Swift became the first female musician to earn $1 billion solely from songwriting and performing.

Half of his fortune came from music royalties and touring, while the rest came from the growing value of his music catalog, including his re-recordings.

Revisiting old material also inspired Swift's career-spanning Eras tour, which grossed more than $2 billion in ticket sales between 2023 and 2024.

In her letter, Swift says the success of the Eras tour "is the reason I was able to repurchase my music."

She added that she felt encouraged to see her struggle inspiring other artists.

"Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their recording contract because of this fight, I'm reminded of how important it was for this all to happen," Swift wrote.

"Thank you for being curious about something that used to be considered very industry-centric, and turning it into a broad discussion."

"You will never know how much it meant to me that you cared. Every little bit of it mattered and got us here."