From Hollywood to Home: Black Voices in Entertainment
- Taylor Swift announced she bought the rights to her entire discography, writing, "All of the music I’ve ever made... now belongs... to me."
- Taylor Swift credited fans' support for purchasing Taylor’s Version albums and tour tickets as why she could buy back her music.
- The rights dispute began when Big Machine Records was sold in 2019 and later to Shamrock Capital; Swift has re-recorded four albums, two remain.
Scooter Braun, the businessman responsible for Taylor Swift rerecording and releasing four of her early albums as “Taylor’s Versions,” says he’s glad Swift now finally owns the master recordings of all of her music.
“I am happy for her,” Braun, 43, told TODAY.com May 30 after Swift announced she purchased the rights to the master recordings of her entire discography.
Swift broke her news in a letter to fans May 30 on her website.“All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me,” she wrote.
“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.”
In her letter, Swift thanked fans for purchasing her “Taylor’s Version” albums along with tickets to her record-breaking “Eras Tour,” explaining that their “passionate support” was “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,” she wrote.
The controversy around the rights to Swift’s music began in 2019 when music executive Braun bought Swift’s former record label Big Machine Records.
The purchase made Braun the owner of all master recordings for Swift’s first six albums. The following year, the recordings were sold to the private equity firm Shamrock Capital.
In a 2020 statement reacting to the Shamrock Capital sale, Swift said at the time she “attempted to enter into negotiations with Scooter Braun” but alleges she was asked to sign an NDA that would “silence” her.
Braun told Variety in 2021 that he offered to sell Swift’s catalog back to her, “but her team refused.”
Swift, who signed her record deal with Big Machine Records when she was just 15, announced in November 2020 that she had begun rerecording her first six albums.
Over the years, she’s released four of the re-recordings — “Fearless” (2021), “Red” (2021), “Speak Now” (2023) and “1989” (2023) — all with the phrase “Taylor’s Version” added to their titles to reflect that she owned the master recordings of the new versions.
Prior to her May 30 announcement about buying back her music, Swift still had two additional pre-2019 albums left to rerecord and release: 2017’s “Reputation” and her 2006 self-titled debut album.
Swift addressed the two albums in her letter to fans, explaining that she already finished rerecording her debut album but was only about a “quarter” of the way through rerecording “Reputation.”
“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 said of “Reputation,” noting that she did have “unreleased tracks” from her original recording sessions for the album.
Swift added that “Taylor’s Versions” of the albums may still “re-emerge” if it’s something fans “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,” she wrote.
Swift celebrated her news by sharing four photos on Instagram, all of which showed her on the floor surrounded by vinyl editions of her first six albums.
She captioned the images, “You belong with me.”
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