{"id":859673,"date":"2025-07-02T22:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T03:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/02\/taylor-swift-buys-back-her-master-recordings\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T22:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T03:12:09","slug":"taylor-swift-buys-back-her-master-recordings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/02\/taylor-swift-buys-back-her-master-recordings\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift buys back her master recordings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Taylor Swift has bought back the rights to her first six albums, ending a long-running battle over the ownership of her music.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the music I\u2019ve ever made now belongs to me,\u201d said the star, announcing the news on her official website. \u201cI\u2019ve been bursting into tears of joy\u2026 ever since I found out this is really happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

The saga began in June 2019, when music manager Scooter Braun bought Swift\u2019s former record label Big Machine and, with it, all of the songs from Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation.<\/p>\n

Swift had personal objections to the deal, blaming Braun for complicity in the \u201cincessant, manipulative bullying\u201d against her by Kanye West, one of his clients.<\/p>\n

On her website, Swift said that reclaiming the rights to her music had, for a long time, seemed unimaginable.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,\u201d she added, thanking fans for their support as the drama played out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s all in the past now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the music industry, the owner of a master recording controls the way it is distributed and licenced. The artist still earns royalties, but controlling the masters offers protection over how the work is used in future.<\/p>\n

Reputation (Taylor\u2019s Version) delayed?<\/h3>\n
Swift posed with vinyl copies of her first six albums to celebrate the news<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Swift responded to the original sale of her masters by vowing to re-record those records, effectively diminishing the value of those master tapes, and putting ownership back in her hands.<\/p>\n

To date, she has released four re-recorded albums \u2013 known as \u201cTaylor\u2019s Versions\u201d \u2013 with dozens of bonus tracks and supplementary material.<\/p>\n

In her letter, the star told fans she had yet to complete the project, after \u201chitting a stopping point\u201d while trying to remake 2017\u2019s Reputation album \u2013 which dealt with public scrutiny of her private life, and the fall-out of her feud with Kanye West.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life,\u201d she explained. \u201cAll that defiance, that longing to be understood while feeling purposefully misunderstood\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be perfectly honest, it\u2019s the one album in those first six that I thought couldn\u2019t be improved by re-doing it\u2026 so I kept putting it off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, the star previewed the new version of Reputation\u2019s first single, Look What You Made Me Do, in an episode of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale \u2013 but her letter suggested that a full re-recording would be delayed or even scrapped.<\/p>\n

However, she promised that vault tracks from the record would be released at a future date, if fans were \u201cinto the idea\u201d.<\/p>\n

She also confirmed that she had re-recorded her self-titled debut, adding: \u201cI really love how it sounds now\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if it happens, it won\u2019t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is a master recording?<\/h3>\n

As the name suggests, a master recording is the original recorded performance of a song. Whoever owns it controls all the rights to exploit the music.<\/p>\n

That includes distributing it to streaming services, pressing new physical CDs and vinyl, creating box sets, or licensing songs to movies or video games.<\/p>\n

Swift, as the writer or co-writer of her music, always maintained her publishing rights, which meant she was able to veto attempts to license songs like Shake It Off and Love Story to other companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies. I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it,\u201d she told Billboard in 2019.<\/p>\n

It is not known how much it cost Swift to acquire her masters, but the catalogue previously sold for $300m (\u00a3222m) in 2020.<\/p>\n

The BBC understands that rumours she paid between $600m to $1bn are inaccurately high.<\/p>\n

Revisiting her old songs for the \u201cTaylor\u2019s Version\u201d project helped to inspire the career-spanning Eras Tour<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How did the sale of Taylor Swift\u2019s masters happen?<\/h3>\n

When 14-year-old Taylor Swift moved to Nashville in 2004 to chase her dream of becoming a country pop star, she signed a record deal with Big Machine.<\/p>\n

Label boss Scott Borchetta gave the unproven singer a big cash advance in exchange for having ownership of the master recordings to her first six albums \u201cin perpetuity\u201d.<\/p>\n

This was fairly common practice in the era before streaming, when artists needed record label backing to get played on the radio, and for the manufacture and distribution of CDs.<\/p>\n

Swift\u2019s deal with Big Machine expired in 2018, at which point she left and signed with Republic Records and Universal Music Group (UMG).<\/p>\n

A year later, Borchetta sold his label to Scooter Braun\u2019s Ithaca Holdings.<\/p>\n

Swift said she only learned about the deal when it was announced; characterising it as an act of aggression that \u201cstripped me of my life\u2019s work\u201d.<\/p>\n

She labelled Braun \u2013 who rose to prominence as the manager of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande \u2013 as \u201cthe definition of toxic male privilege in our industry\u201d.<\/p>\n

She also expressed frustration that she had been unable to make a counter offer for her music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity,\u201d she told Billboard, adding that: \u201cArtists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Braun later told Variety that the dispute had \u201cgotten out of hand\u201d after he and his family received death threats.<\/p>\n

The music mogul later sold his stake in Swift\u2019s back catalogue to Shamrock Holdings, a Los Angeles investment fund founded by the Disney family in 1978, in November 2020.<\/p>\n

The multi-million dollar deal left Swift feeling betrayed again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge,\u201d she said in a social media post.<\/p>\n

While she was \u201copen to the possibility of a partnership with Shamrock\u201d, she subsequently learnt that, under the terms of the sale, Braun would \u201ccontinue to profit off my old music\u201d for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI simply cannot in good conscience bring myself to be involved in benefiting Scooter Braun\u2019s interests,\u201d she wrote in a letter to the company, which she posted on X.<\/p>\n

Ownership of the masters means that Swift can now choose to license original recordings to films and TV shows, in addition to the re-recordings<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She began releasing her re-recorded albums in 2021, starting with her breakthrough, coming-of-age album Fearless.<\/p>\n

Produced with forensic attention to detail, they were often indistinguishable from the originals \u2013 albeit with slightly cleaner mixes, and greater separation between the instruments.<\/p>\n

But the big attraction was the bonus tracks, including the unabridged, 10-minute version of her break-up ballad All Too Well \u2013 described by Variety magazine as the \u201choly grail\u201d of the star\u2019s back catalogue.<\/p>\n

The song went on to top the US charts, and made number three in the UK \u2013 where it is the longest song ever to reach the top five.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the singer continued to release original material, including the Grammy Award-winning albums Folklore and Midnights.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Forbes magazine reported that Swift had become the first musician to make $1 billion (\u00a3740 million) solely from songwriting and performing.<\/p>\n

Half of her fortune came from music royalties and touring, while the rest came from the increasing value of her music catalogue, including her re-recordings.<\/p>\n

Revisiting the old material also inspired Swift\u2019s career-spanning Eras tour, which made more than $2 billion (\u00a31.48 billion) in ticket sales across 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n

In her letter, Swift said the success of the Eras tour \u201cis why I was able to buy back my music\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added that she was heartened to see her struggle inspiring other artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I\u2019m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted, and ended us up here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taylor Swift has bought back the rights to her first six albums, ending a long-running battle over the ownership of her music. \u201cAll of the music I\u2019ve ever made now belongs to me,\u201d said the star, announcing the news on her official website. \u201cI\u2019ve been bursting into tears of joy\u2026 ever since I found out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":859674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[484,485],"tags":[5759,5758],"class_list":{"0":"post-859673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-swift","8":"category-taylor","9":"tag-swift","10":"tag-taylor"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}