In 2019, Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings purchased all of the masters held/owned by Big Machine. Those masters included Taylor Swift’s first six albums. Swift was furious. Swift and her fans went to war with Braun for a while, and within a year of the sale, Braun off-loaded the Big Machine property to Shamrock Capital for a tidy profit. In the past six years, Taylor ended up taking Kelly Clarkson’s advice – Clarkson randomly tossed off a tweet back in 2019, advising Taylor to rerecord those albums and ask the Swifties to buy the re-recordings. Taylor did just that, and the “Taylor’s Version” re-rerecordings were massively successful too. Well, after all of that, Taylor has now bought back her masters for her first six albums. The dramatic announcement came on Friday:
In one of the more dramatic business developments in pop music history, Taylor Swift has purchased her catalog of recordings that were initially released through Big Machine Records, after six years of transfers and turmoil. She acquired those six albums and associated visuals from their most recent owner, Shamrock Capital, for an undisclosed nine-figure sum, a price tag that is being characterized by Swift as exceptionally fair and reasonable.
The singer will be reissuing her old Big Machine albums, which were first sold by Big Machine against her wishes in 2019,. But now there will be two fully authorized versions of each of those albums in the marketplace, since she’s saying the re-recorded “Taylor’s Versions” will continue to be available alongside the originals. Two of those bonus-filled editions have yet to come out, including the long-awaited “Reputation (Taylor’s Version),” and her statement declares this deal won’t keep the remaining pair of do-overs from still being released.
News of a possible sale by Shamrock to Swift was first reported by the New York Post, but a source close to the negotiations disavowed elements of that story, saying the price tag reported was grossly inflated, and that there was no involvement of Scooter Braun. His Ithaca Holdings bought the catalog in 2019 before Shamrock acquired it from him a year later; he no longer participates in any profit from a sale, and Swift’s camp is adamant he had no part in Shamrock’s decision to sell.
Said the source close to the sale: “Contrary to a previous false report, there was no outside party who ‘encouraged’ this sale. All rightful credit for this opportunity should go to the partners at Shamrock Capital and Taylor’s Nashville-based management team only. Taylor now owns all of her music, and this moment finally happened in spite of Scooter Braun, not because of him.”
The source added, “The rumored price range that was reported is highly inaccurate.” While no price tag will be publicly forthcoming, insiders say the seller was interested in making a good-faith deal and the ultimate price was far closer to the $300 million Shamrock was reported to have paid in 2020 than the far more extravagant $600-million-to-$1 billion the Post hypothesized in its story.
Prior to this week, Swift fans were certain an announcement for “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” would be forthcoming on Memorial Day or thereabouts. But for those who still have that as their primary concern, the singer assured fans that her plans to reissue her original albums will not affect plans to put out the final two “Taylor’s Version” editions, the other of which would be a new version of her debut album — though she hedge a bit. Don’t expect the new “Reputation” or “Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version)” any time soon, she cautioned in the note, even though songs from a partially re-recorded version of the former album have already been licensed for television (recently appearing in “The Handmaid’s Tale”).
As she explains in her letter: “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 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. 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.”
Variety mentioned something which I didn’t know about the 2019 Big Machine sale – not only did Taylor lose the rights to/ownership of her masters, she didn’t own the rights to her music videos, artwork and concert specials from that era. So now she has the rights to ALL of it, she owns all of it free and clear. As for the money… as Variety notes, their sources are saying that it was closer to $300 million. Page Six’s sources say the final figure was around $360 million. Which sounds like a lot, but consider this: she likely made around $2.5 billion just from the Eras Tour. So, she has the money and she used that money to buy her own work back. Good for her.
You belong with me.
💚💛💜❤️🩵🖤Letter on my site 🙂 pic.twitter.com/pdb6kGDcVO
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) May 30, 2025
rep forever guilt free listening! pic.twitter.com/0LKciEe75c
— jackantonoff (@jackantonoff) May 31, 2025
Photos courtesy of Backgrid. Cover courtesy of Time. Album cover courtesy of Taylor Swift’s social media.
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- Stockholm, SWEDEN – Taylor Swift plays Friends Arena on Friday night. This is the first of three concerts during the “The Eras Tour” in Stockholm. Pictured: Taylor Swift BACKGRID USA 17 MAY 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Stockholm, SWEDEN – Taylor Swift plays Friends Arena on Friday night. This is the first of three concerts during the “The Eras Tour” in Stockholm. Pictured: Taylor Swift BACKGRID USA 17 MAY 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Warsaw, POLAND – Taylor Swift performs at the National Stadium in Warsaw during the Eras Tour in Poland. It’s the first of three nights of concerts of the singer in the city, Pictured: Taylor Swift BACKGRID USA 1 AUGUST 2024 BYLINE MUST READ: FOPO / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Taylor Swift heads to dinner at Chez Margaux in NYC’s Meatpacking District on Friday evening, enjoying a cozy catch-up with her gal pal Zoë Kravitz. Pictured: Taylor Swift BACKGRID USA 8 NOVEMBER 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Los Angeles, CA – The 67th Annual Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Pictured: Taylor Swift BACKGRID USA 2 FEBRUARY 2025 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Los Angeles, CA – The 67th Annual Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Pictured: Taylor Swift BACKGRID USA 2 FEBRUARY 2025 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Los Angeles, CA – The 67th Annual Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Pictured: Taylor Swift BACKGRID USA 2 FEBRUARY 2025 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
She’s buying an asset that will appreciate. She was devaluing their asset with the re-records and blocking the songs from being used commercially. It’s a smart move all round. If anything happens and she needs to sell them, she will be able to for a huge profit. Congrats to her.
All this reminded me of when Prince went to war with Warner Brothers Music over his Masters! So 😊 that Taylor was able to get control of her work!
@Lala yassss Prince was an absolute visionary in music and the business of it. All women artists need to look at this and make sure they have their own backs and take ownership or someone else will. I have so much admiration for this aspect of Taylor.She took back her own. Amazing.
Yes! I wish Prince were still here so he could’ve seen it. He was such a warrior for artists’ rights
The way that folks were acting like she ended global hunger was crazy. She’s made hundreds of millions of dollars from her Taylor’s version releases—this has hardly been a tragedy for her. Good for Taylor I guess but some folks need perspective
Thank you!
people are just happy that an artist owns the music they wrote in their bedroom!no one said she was Jesus!people are just happy for her!the fact that you’re snarking at fans being happy for a person whose music raised them says more about you than them!
It says I have perspective. Good for Taylor but like I initially mentioned, she has made millions from her Taylor’s version albums rereleases. And EYE thought the reaction was a LOT—this not ending the world’s ills and that’s not her responsibility, but have some f*cking perspective.
Its her work, its actually not cool that she had to buy back her own work….work that she sang, wrote a whole bunch of them, composed a lot of them and starred in them. Scott Borchetta massively underestimated her and greatly undervalued her worth when he made the deal. Had he stayed with Taylor till the end, he’d be swimming in money he wouldn’t be able to count by now. I think he’s the bigger villain. Scooter was offered a deal which he rightfully thought would make him money and didn’t blink to sign. It made him hell of a lot of money too. At the end, I think it worked out for everyone. Taylor made bank, bought her work back….Scooter made a good deal of money too and now he is running HYBE America which has potential to become massive. Sure, everyone thinks Scooter is a comic book villain which honestly gives him more personality and lore that he doesn’t deserve.
I never understood why Scooter couldn’t have just sold Taylor her music back? Was it bc he wanted to make a profit from re-selling?
After his purchase, he shared a post from a friend saying “my friend just bought Taylor Swift”. It wasn’t just money, business for him. That is why he wanted to muzzle her forever in order to start any type of negotiations to sell to her.
Okay, that adds another level of grossness.
Ugh. I’d never heard that, but what a disgusting and misogynistic — I’m sure deliberately so — way to put it. And to revel in that nastiness.
As a musician, I can imagine how…violating it must have felt for TS to lose control over her life’s work. I hate that she had to go to this length to get it back, especially because most similarly exploited artists will likely never have means (or even a way to acquire them) to do the same. I’d love to see her get involved in changing these practices. I think she’s one of few who absolutely has that kind of clout.
@Miranda, I remember Taylor saying she knew that her work was gonna get sold together with the company and she made peace with it. When she learned it was Scooter who bought it, she made her thoughts public. If it was some shitty investment firm, she would move on and maybe try to buy from them in the future. She made a note of Scooter’s post “buying her” in multiple statements. So, yeah, she knew it wasn’t just business.
I disagree that Scooter bought Taylor’s catalog to annoy/control her. It cost a couple of hundred million to do so. He did it for the money. Annoying her may have been the cherry but I think he was able to resell with $100 million profit. As for not selling to Taylor, she may not want to have anything to do with Scooter. In the end, everyone came out ahead.
among other issues, I think in 2019 she couldn’t afford it, or big machine offered it to her before selling and she couldn’t afford it, etc.
the money was never an issue! he wanted to own taylor in order to control her life and career, he literally bragged about it on instagram saying : “i bought taylor”
Scott Borchetta wouldn’t let her buy her masters from Big Machine in 2019, his only offer was for her to sign another six album deal to ‘earn’ them back one at a time; selling to Scooter instead was extra salt in the wound
@Becks1, Scott Borchetta was selling the whole company. Taylor’s masters were the most expensive assets at the company. So, probably that is why he didn’t want to sell them to her directly.
He tried to force her to sign NDAs, and non-disparagement clauses to even enter negotiations and was asking a way over-valued price IIRC.
There were a couple of points where theoretically she could have bought them – a deal was offered by her original record label would have given her ownership in exchange for every new album she delivered, which would have trapped her in a bad deal for another six albums.
Mandragora, I remember that. The offer to Taylor was that she could incrementally ‘buy back’ her masters by creating and releasing 6 new albums. Who knows what kind of prices Big Machine would have put on the new albums, they could f-k with Taylor over prohibitive pricing or controlling release dates, etc.
He wanted her to sign an NDA which meant she would not have been able to disparage him. He even admitted to the NDA (not the non-disparagement clause) thing after the whole sale went down. Taylor would never sign a restrictive NDA like that and so by refusing to do so, she lost her masters.
But then she started re-recording her albums and in doing so, she was able to get her masters back. I do think this was her original plan all along when she started re-recording her albums. She knew that her fans would support her, buy her re-recordings, and the worth of her original masters would go down, leaving whoever held her masters with a whole bunch of songs they couldn’t use. She really is a brilliant business woman!
She had the opportunity to buy them first. Her team was told the company wanted to sell. She didn’t buy them at the time. Simple as that.
No she didn’t. This thread has in detail explained this.
Good for her but can we talk about the timing of this “announcement”? First Billie now Miley.
There’s always going to be someone releasing, that’s unavoidable. And she didn’t even drop new music. She didn’t do anything wrong and I say this as a huge Miley fan.
she literally didn’t release anything!she just wrote an instagram letter!and she hasn’t release any music in more than a year! miley flopped because the GP doesn’t care about her and she counldn’t compete with morgan wallen on the charts!
If she’d actually wanted to take Miley (and more significantly Morgan Wallen) out, they’d have had a special digital version of Reputation with live tracks from Eras ready to go, and have lined up interviews with her on every single talk show. It was one Instagram post, and music ranging from 8-20 years old that’s already available.
Wallen, not Swift, has a chokehold on the US charts at the moment. Nobody seems to be saying anything about how he’s moving to ‘block’ other artists. Based on her last album – even with Flowers being huge – Miley never had a hope of cracking the number 1 spot, and seems to be tracking to hit exactly her projected sales figures, Taylor or no Taylor.
Deals get done when they get done and banks and finance bros notoriously get leaky once paperwork is signed. She announced just as ownership became hers .
This comment sounds like it’s from the royal rota because Harry and Meghan left their house and stole someone’s thunder.
What has Taylor announcing anything /doing something got to do with miley or Billie? If their fans aren’t focussed on them, that’s their problem. Does Taylor need to have a calender so people don’t cry that mean Taylor stole their thunder? That’s some utter mysoginistic bs right there
Miley- that couldn’t beat Morgan Wallen and a 9 year old album that Miley? But I notice in this you don’t come for the man Morgan Wallen who blocked your girl with his album.
Taylor isn’t doing anything wrong making this announcement and she certainly isn’t doing anything to hurt Miley or any of the others you mentioned. She is just more popular and people care more about her work. If these other artists’ fans spent more time listening and supporting their work vs complaining about Taylor maybe they’d it number one.
Womp womp, I guess Scooter Braun couldn’t “buy Taylor Swift”. The best part of this saga has been how Taylor made Scooter a household name. I read before he wanted to go into politics at some point, but after what happened with Taylor, he realized that no one in politics will come close to him in a million years. Even though he didn’t lose money from this, his ego got crushed, which is the worst thing you can do to men like him. Happy for Taylor owning her own work.
Happy for Taylor that she bought back her own work – the rights to her own images and performances seem the most important part of this purchase. As to a re-recording of “reputation”? She should save it for later! It sounds like she is too content with her life right now, lol.
I do love that part, that she is not in the terrible headspace she was when she recorded reputation- and does not want to go there.
She explains it in Miss Americana, how she felt when there was all that backlash related to the nazi rapper.
The way i read the reputation part of her letter is that there probably won’t be a full Taylor’s version of Reputation, but she will release perhaps a special addition with the tracks she has already re-recorded (less than 1/4th), the original tracks- and the vault tracks- and the vault tracks is what we really love.
Because sometimes its like- how did this not make it on the album- it is so damn good.
I absolutely love this for her! Good for you Taylor.
While I am sure this was experiance was hell for Taylor, she taught a lot of regular people about how exploitative the music, and the arts in general, are of the creative labour that builds them. A lot of people would have never assumed that an artist didn’t have the rights to what they wrote and created and I’m glad she made her fight so public. A generation of women, especially, will not be so trusting and fight for their work and copyright.
I love that too. and, as she mentioned in her letter, younger artists have since said to her that they negotiated their publishing into their contracts.
The music has always been exploitative (and racist and misogynistic) but if this moves things even an inch for smaller artists, its a win for all artists.
Also John Fogerty, who famously didn’t own his publishing and was once found guilty of plagarizing another song HE HAD WRITTEN – now owns all his publishing and is putting out a new greatest hits album for Creedence stuff.
He told his team that he wanted to call it Taylor’s Version. They said no. But i thought it was funny.
Also, somehow REM were smart enough as young musicians to know they wanted to own their own music (i remember them saying as much at the songwriters hall of fame).
But much like they should (and i believe do) teach financially literacy to young players of professional sports, there should be a mandatory class- pre-signing contracts.
Also depicted in Straight Outta Compton. Ice Cube was the only one smart enough to say no to signing the exploitative contract, in a dark room, without counsel, while being encouraged not to read it.
Back to Taylor, i got to purchase and listen to Reputation for the first time this weekend.
Because, yeah, i wasn’t giving money to the gross man, or even the people he sold it to- while he was still making profit.
Okay last thing, swifties love to “clown”. And to find out after all this time that every thing that people thought was a HUGE SIGN that Reputation TV was about to drop- that Taylor has only re-recorded a few of the songs….. that is incredibly funny.
I hope she enjoys her 2025, whether she is writing or planning or doing nothing at all.
That eras tour was a juggernaut- and a ton of hard work went into every aspect of it.
Lady deserves her win, and her vacation.
Thanks for that Fogerty info, brilliant man and great band. I also thought the suggested title was funny!
While I think this is good news for taylor, its important to consider how widespread this is in the music industry and how the industry is structured especially with initial recording contracts. It took taylor swift launching one of the biggest tours in history to be able to get her music back. that’s not feasible for every artist out there unfortunately.
I’m sooo happy for her and the fans!Also Fuck scooter braun and scott brochetta forever!the fact that they did this to an artist as big as taylor, i can only imagine what they do to smaller artists!
John Fogarty, the renowned singer of writer of Creedence Clearwater Revival, was so inspired by Taylor Swift re-recording her albums to own her music that when he did the same he wanted to name it “Taylor’s Version”. He did record his own and it was named “John’s Version” as he fought with the record company about it. He was so angry about not owning his music that he refused to play any CCR songs for years. It’s a true pleasure to hear him singing his songs again.
I read that too. And i recall where his record company sued him for a new song he wrote for plagarism- for a song they owned- that he also wrote. Evil, greedy.
He has been fighting for decades.
So happy for him.
And it would have been really funny if he had released his re-recorded credence songs as “taylor’s version”.
This is weirdly emotionally cathartic for me and I’m not even what you’d call a Swiftie. I’ve never been to one of her shows or bought an album. But I like a lot of her music and my daughter grew up with it. Baby Taylor was on the Disney channel in my car while I was driving my littles from here to there. I know how much this means to her and a lot of her fans. It’s empowering and she seems to feel like she literally got a piece of herself back. I hope this example really does continue to help young musicians maintain control of their images and their creative process in a brutal business.
Taylor proving once again that if she were a man, she’d be The Man.
So happy for her, and yes, I hope younger, less powerful artists learn from her experience.
Whatever you want to say about Taylor’s business acumen, and people say plenty, she is SMART!!!
A friend of mine and I were discussing this recently, and she was dismissing Taylor’s success saying that it’s all because of her father. I disagree, I work with a lot of business people, and very few of them know everything about everything. The most successful CEOs and COOs surround themselves with
Capable advisors in the areas of marketing, business, ops, legal, and IT.. Even if it is her dad with these ideas or closing the deals, he obviously knows what he’s doing, and she is smart to listen to his advice.
Wow! Your friend claimed all of Taylor’s success wasn’t her hard work, her songwriting, her ideas, her performances but her father? That’s actual mysoginy (and jealousy). If that were the case every person with a team behind them would be billionaires and that’s obviously not true.
Her father wasn’t that great if he didn’t negotiate her masters? I don’t own her music but she’s obviously very smart and she drives the decision making. Maybe educate your friend on Taylor personally turning down some crypto promo (google the story). She was in the room, she did the due diligence. It’s clear she’s running the show. Hard to believe women can still put down successful ones and attribute it all to a man.
Many musicians are cash poor when they sign their first big record deal, which gives the Business a big stick to wave around. “You can sign this or go back to playing at the Ramada Inn lounge….” Good for Taylor and everyone who is more informed because of here experience. But I really came here to say that she looks so great on the cat-lady Time cover and I think it’s because of her hair. I am ready for her to leave those bangs where she left Scooter Braun.
Good for her!
I’m reminded of a singer-songwriter I knew in San Antonio, mid-70s. His record label shelved his last release with them and he wasn’t allowed to even play that music live! It was a heartbreaking mess. I don’t know whatever happened to him.
The whole release-your-own music aspect of 1970s punk/1980s post-punk was a great thing. Most didn’t make much money then, but at least they owned their own music. I’ve got some of my own music 45s kicking around. Every now and then, I get contacted for including work on a POST-PUNK! compilation or possibility of its use in a film or tv show.
Still made no money, but it’s mine.
Good for her. I wish we lived in a world where a person didn’t have to be a billionaire to own their own creative labor, but AI has made it clear how much the wealthy see the world as a fount from which they can endlessly drink without end.
Good for her. She was playing the long game and I’m sure this was always her ultimate goal.
Reminds me of when Kate Bush got ‘rediscovered’ by Stranger Things. She was absolutely delighted because she owns all her music and was finally making some bank.