Taylor Swift regains full ownership of her first six albums after buying back master recordings

Taylor Swift just turned one of the music industry’s messiest battles into a full-circle victory —  she now officially owns the master recordings of her first six albums.

How Taylor Swift’s master recordings journey changed the music industry

In a heartfelt letter to fans, Swift announced that she has purchased the masters, along with her videos, concert films, album art and unreleased songs from Shamrock Capital. ‘All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me,’ she wrote. And yes, she’s considering a shamrock tattoo to mark the moment.

The win has been a long time coming. In 2019, Swift’s former label, Big Machine, sold her master to music executive Scooter Braun without offering her the chance to buy them. For Swift, it wasn’t just a business deal — it was personal. She called it her ‘worst case scenario’ and revealed she would’ve had to ‘earn’ her albums back one by one with new releases.

Not one to back down, Swift found a powerful workaround: rerecord the albums herself. Between 2021 and 2023, she released Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) — complete with never-heard-before “From the Vault” tracks that fans devoured.

Her rerecordings weren’t just chart toppers — they became a movement. Swifties streamed the new versions in solidarity, helping Taylor dilute the value of the originals while asserting creative control.

Now, after years of contracts, clues and coded Easter eggs, Swift owns everything — with no strings attached. She thanked Shamrock Capital for treating her catalogue as more than just an asset. ‘They saw it for what it was to me: my memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams.’

Fans also played a big role in this ending. ‘I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to,’ she wrote.

With Reputation and her debut album still unreleased as rerecordings, fans are wondering whether they’ll ever hear Reputation (Taylor’s Version) or Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version). But now that she owns the originals, Swift may decide there’s no longer a need.

Either way, the message is clear: This isn’t just a business move. It’s a moment for artistic ownership, female empowerment and fans who stuck by her side through snakes, shamrocks and streaming wars. It’s also a reminder that even when the music industry plays dirty, Taylor Swift plays smarter.

The moral of the story? Never bet against a girl with a guitar, a diary full of lyrics and a billion-dollar fanbase.

Mic drop (Taylor’s Version)