Taylor Swift Buys Back Her Early Albums After Years-Long Crusade

Superstar singer-songwriter Taylor Swift re-acquired the rights to her first six albums, according to a statement on her website Friday.

The deal marks the end of a years-long battle between Swift, her former label Big Machine Label Group, music manager Scooter Braun and the private equity firm Shamrock Capital, which had acquired the albums. After losing control of the master recordings of her earlier work, the singer re-recorded some of the records in an effort to undercut the originals’ popularity.

“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually to be pretty reserved about it,” she wrote in the statement. “All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy.”

While Swift wrote the songs on her first six albums, Big Machine owned the actual recordings that made her famous. The label sold those to Braun’s Ithaca Holdings LLC in June 2019, as part of a larger deal. After Swift spoke out about her lack of approval of the deal, Ithaca Holdings sold those rights to Shamrock for about $300 million.

Her re-recordings, dubbed “Taylor’s Version,” were massively successful and gave her fans the choice to side with her in a battle over the rights to her songs. Swift didn’t share how much she paid to obtain ownership in this new deal.

The singer said she now controls all of her photography, album art, videos and unreleased songs.

“I’m extremely heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry among artists and fans,” she wrote. “Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen.”