Confused About Taylor Swift’s Masters? Here’s What You Need to Know

You’ve seen the photo: Taylor Swift, sitting on the floor surrounded by her first six albums and beaming at the camera like a proud mother. It’s been reposted across Instagram stories, dropped into group chats, and maybe even triggered a few emotional texts from your token Swiftie friend who can’t wait to listen to the original version of Better Than Revenge.

But what does that even mean?

What’s going on? 

Why should I care?

And why is everyone talking about Rep TV?

If you have any of these questions, don’t worry. We’ve got some answers. Whether you’re a casual listener or a certified Swiftologist (or just really confused), here’s everything you need to know about Swift’s latest power move and what it means for her music. 

What is going on?

In the music industry, a master recording is the original recorded performance of a piece of music, and owning someone’s masters means you’re able to control the music’s rights, including distribution and licensing. 

All the press and chaos you’re seeing now is because Swift just bought her first six albums’ masters back after losing them in a pretty messy way.

Back in 2019, the master rights to her albums Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation were sold without her knowledge by Big Machine Label Group, which was the first label she signed with in 2005. Her contract with the label expired in 2018, and she ultimately decided to sign with Republic Records and Universal Music Group, where she owns the masters for her re-recordings and her albums Lover, Folklore, Evermore, Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department.  

One year later, Scott Borchetta, founder, president, and CEO of Big Machine Records, sold his label to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. Braun and Swift were—and still are—very publicly at odds with each other, which added fuel to the fire (more on this later). Swift said she found out about the sale along with everyone else when it was announced, and Braun owning her music was the “worst-case scenario.” 

In 2020, Braun sold the rights to her masters to private equity firm Shamrock Holdings, once again without her knowledge. Even though Braun no longer owned her music, he would continue to earn profit off her work under the terms of the sale. 

However, Swift’s contract allowed her to start re-recording her music in November of 2020, legally, she said, which she decided to go forward with to decrease the original albums’ value and regain her control. So if you’ve ever seen or heard anything regarding “Taylor’s Version,” it’s in reference to the duplicate albums.

Braun eventually announced he was retiring from the music industry on June 17, 2024, which ultimately meant he’d no longer make any money from the popstar. When the news was released, Swift saw an opening.

After a years-long fight that unfolded in front of a global audience, Swift purchased the rights to her original catalogue and notified her fans on May 30. 

The price Swift bought her masters for is undisclosed, but there’s speculation it was for more than $300 million.

Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Spotify

What’s the drama between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun?

Well, it’s a lot. The two have different recollections of their feud, and it’s a lot of “he said, she said.” But here’s what you need to know. 

Even before Braun became involved with the ownership of Swift’s masters, he had already engaged in what Swift deemed as “bullying” on social media. In a November 2019 Tumblr post made by Swift, she shared a screenshot from Justin Bieber’s 2016 Instagram post of him, Braun and Kanye West, who also has very public beef with Swift, on FaceTime. Both Bieber and West were managed by Braun, and Bieber’s post was captioned “Taylor swift what up.”

In Swift’s Tumblr message, she circled Braun’s face and added text that read, “This is Scooter Braun, bullying me on social media when I was at my lowest point. He’s about to own all the music I’ve ever made.”

One of the most notable moments of their public feud was the conflict surrounding the 2019 American Music Awards. In a Tumblr post from November 14th, 2019, Swift said Braun and Scott Borchetta wouldn’t let her perform her old songs at the award show, where she was going to receive the Artist of the Decade Award. 

“I’ve been planning to perform a medley of my hits throughout the decade on the show,” she wrote. “Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun have now said that I’m not allowed to perform my old songs on television because they claim that would be re-recording my music before I’m allowed to next year.” 

She also said the two of them wouldn’t let her use her old music or footage of her performances in her Netflix documentary, but Big Machine Label Group posted a statement on their website saying Swift’s Tumblr post was false. 

“At no point did we say Taylor could not perform on the AMAs or block her Netflix special,” the post read. “In fact, we do not have the right to keep her from performing live anywhere.”

Tree Paine, Swift’s publicist, posted a since-deleted message on X (then Twitter), which pointed out that Big Machine Label Group never denied either of Swift’s claims. It read:

“The truth is, on October 28, 2019, at 5:17 p.m., the Vice President, Rights Management and Business Affairs from Big Machine label group sent Taylor Swift’s Team the following: ‘Please be advised that BMLG will not agree to issue licenses for existing recordings or waivers of its re-recording restrictions in connection with these two projects: the Netflix documentary and the Alibaba ‘Double Eleven’ event.’ To avoid an argument over rights, Taylor performed three songs off her new album, Lover, at the Double Eleven event, as it was clear that Big Machine Label Group felt any televised performance of catalogue songs violated her agreement. In addition, yesterday, Scott Borchetta, CEO and founder of Big Machine Label Group, flatly denied the request for both American Music Awards and Netflix.”

Then, about a week before the AMAs, the label told TMZ that Swift was able to perform her discography, including her past songs. What happened behind the scenes is still unknown. 

What’s the deal with the re-records? Are they just copycats of the original albums?

To the casual listener, the re-records will probably sound like copycats of the originals — with an evidently more mature voice — but the certified Swiftie is trained to spot the subtle differences (i.e. the different guitars in the opening of “Style” and “Style (Taylor’s Version)”. 

However, the main attraction wasn’t the new versions of her hit songs. To encourage fans to listen to the re-records, Swift added previously unreleased songs as bonus “from the vault” content at the end of each album. For Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version), Swift also featured letter unscrambling games for fans to guess the names of the vault tracks, further building anticipation for their respective releases. 

Are we still getting the remaining rerecordings?

Yes and no. Sorry, Swifties, but it looks like no “Reputation (Taylor’s Version).”

In a letter posted to Swift’s website on May 30, written by the pop star herself, she addresses the high demand for the rerecording of her sixth studio album. Even though there’s been speculation it would be released soon (i.e. the conspiracy she would release it at this year’s American Music Awards), she confessed she hasn’t even recorded a quarter of the album. 

“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,” she wrote. “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.”

But not all hope is lost for her self-titled first album, which was originally released in 2006. In her letter, she confirmed she re-recorded it and “really loves the way it sounds right now.” She said both Taylor Swift and Reputation can still have their time to shine if fans are still interested (as if they haven’t been using Swift’s street style as potential clues for when she’ll release the albums).

What now? 

Only time will tell. Now that Swift owns the masters to all of her music, she can do whatever she wants, including licensing them for commercials, movies, TV shows and anything in between. 

She also has the right to release any special edition vinyls or promotions, meaning we may see shelves stocked up with records of 18-year-old Swift pensively looking off to the side on the cover of her second album, Fearless. This time, Swift gets to earn the profit, not Scooter Braun or any equity film. 

For Swifties, it’s a win-win situation. Fans now not only get updated, remastered versions of their favourite songs they grew up with, but they also know they’re supporting an artist who reclaimed her work on her own terms.

Why is it a big deal?

In an industry where it’s common for emerging artists to sign away their work just to get their foot in the door, Swift’s fight and perseverance set the standard for business acumen and self-advocacy. She refused to let her music be controlled by money-hungry executives, which reshifted the narrative about who should profit from their work. 

She also sparked a larger conversation about music rights, encouraging young artists to carefully consider their contracts to prioritize their creative control. Truth is: she’s not the only one who got the short end of the stick with her record label. One of the biggest and most recent examples is rapper Megan Thee Stallion, whose label 1501 received 60% of her music’s profit, per Rolling Stone. 

Swift also showed that creative control isn’t just an aspiration — it’s a right worth demanding. She didn’t bow to powerful men or big paychecks, and, in doing so, she rewrote the rules, redefined expectations and retold her story. By taking the long, hard road and refusing to accept defeat, she set a new standard for the music industry, and in the process turned a loss into one of the most successful brand reinventions in music history.

For more Swift articles, read: Taylor Swift’s Concert Outfits – A Journey Through Her Albums.