Taylor Swift reclaims the rights to her first six albums. Teknomers.

On May 30th, Taylor Swift announced that she has achieved her “greatest dream” by acquiring the rights to her first six albums, marking the end of a lengthy battle over the ownership of her work.

“All the music I’ve made now belongs to me. All my music videos. All my concert films. The designs and photos of the albums. The unreleased songs. The memories, the magic, the madness. Each era. The entirety of my life’s work”, the artist shared on her website.

The pop icon was previously locked in a feud with music industry mogul Scooter Braun, who acquired Big Machine Records for a reported $300 million in 2019, thus obtaining majority ownership of Taylor Swift’s recordings. She felt “stripped” of her work, which has continued to fuel public discussion on artist rights.

The owner of the masters — the original recordings used to manufacture vinyl, CDs, and other digital copies — holds the power to determine how songs are reproduced or sold. These coveted recordings are crucial to artists’ income streams.

Braun later sold the rights to Swift’s six initial albums to Shamrock Capital. In a bid to regain control over her work, Swift opted to re-record four of her earlier albums, rebranding them with “Taylor’s Version”.

“Independently”

“All I ever wanted was to have the chance to work hard enough to one day be able to buy back the rights to my music, and to do so free of constraints, without partnerships, independently”, Swift added, thanking Shamrock Capital for enabling her to repurchase the rights to her initial albums, including Fearless and 1989. The financial details of the transaction remain undisclosed.

Taylor Swift wrote or co-wrote the bulk of her repertoire, which allowed her to re-record songs without owning the original recordings. As a teenager, she signed with Big Machine in 2005, leaving the label thirteen years later.

The global recorded music market reached a record revenue of $29.6 billion, celebrating its tenth consecutive year of growth in 2024, driven by streaming subscriptions and the success of stars like Taylor Swift, as noted by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry earlier this year.

Thanks to an increase in paid subscriptions, streaming accounts for 69% of global industry revenue, with Taylor Swift recognized as one of the most listened-to artists in 2024.

“The Eras Tour,” Swift’s latest global tour spanning 2023 and 2024, grossed approximately $2 billion according to the industry publication Pollstar, making it the highest-grossing tour in music history.