Taylor Swift Buys Back Masters of 1st 6 Albums 6 Years After Scooter Braun Bought Them
Taylor Swift has officially bought back her masters six years after Scooter Braun bought them.
Scooter, 43, bought the master recordings of Taylor's first six albums from Big Machine Label Group in 2019 for $300 million. After Scooter faced backlash for the business deal, he sold the masters to investment firm Shamrock Capital in 2020. Taylor officially bought the masters back from Shamrock Capital in May.
'I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,' Taylor wrote in a letter to fans on her website about the deal on Friday, May 30. 'But that's all in the past now. All of the music I've ever made … now belongs … to me.'
In addition to buying back her masters, Taylor also bought back her videos, concert films, album art and photography and unreleased songs from Shamrock.
'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," she continued in the letter. 'I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me. The way they've handled every interaction we've had has been honest, fair and respectful. This was a business deal to them, but I really felt like they saw it for what it was to me: my memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams. I am endlessly thankful. My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.'
Taylor had been open about being upset with Scooter for buying the masters and she's opened up several times about the situation over the years.
'Scooter has stripped me of my life's work, that I wasn't given an opportunity to buy,' she wrote about the sale when it was first announced in a Tumblr post. 'Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.'
Following the sale, Taylor announced her plans to rerecord her first six albums – Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation – so that she could own the rights. She has released all of the rerecordings except for Reputation (Taylor's Version) and Taylor Swift (Taylor's Version) as of time of publication.
Prior to the news of the sale, Page Six reported on May 21 that Scooter encouraged the 'Call It What You Want' singer to buy the masters from Shamrock Capital.
'Interestingly enough, one of the individuals who is encouraging this deal to take place is Scooter, who was at the center of the deal the first time around alongside Big Machine,' a source claimed to the outlet about the sale.
Scooter has also been open about how the sale has impacted him. He previously opened up about the situation while attending a screening of the Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood docuseries in October 2024. The docuseries looks back at Scooter's acquisition of Taylor's former record label, Big Machine Label Group, and the drama that followed.
'I watched [the documentary] recently. I wasn't going to watch it because I just thought it was going to be, like, another hit piece,' he told the crowd at a screening of the Max and Discovery+ docuseries in Los Angeles, according to event footage posted via YouTube. 'And I pretty much stayed quiet about this kind of stuff. And my dad called me and my mom, and they were like, we just watched it. We think you should watch it. So I did.'
He continued, 'Look, it's five years later. I think, everyone, it's time to move on. There were a lot of things that were misrepresented.'
Scooter then noted that it's important for people to 'communicate directly with each other' when dealing with conflict. 'I think doing it out on social media and in front of the whole world is not the place,' he said. 'I think when people actually take the time to stand in front of each other have a conversation, they usually find out the monster's not real. And that has not happened.'
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