How did Taylor Swift lose her music?

Taylor Swift on Friday said she has bought back the rights to her entire back catalog.

"All of the music I've ever made ... now belongs ... to me," she wrote on her website, after years of dispute over her first six albums, a number of which she has rerecorded to create copies she owns herself.

Thos records included the award-winning "Reputation" and "Taylor Swift."

Swift bought back her masters from Shamrock Capital, an LA investment firm, for an undisclosed amount.

While her fans are well aware of the history of her feud with record executives, a large number of people are still at a loss to understand why a singer would lose the rights to their own music.

The feud began in 2019 as Taylor Swift faced a devastating blow when Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group, including the master recordings of her first six albums: Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014), and Reputation (2017). 

Swift, who had left Big Machine for Republic Records in 2018, claimed she was not given the opportunity to purchase her masters, describing the sale as her “worst case scenario” due to Braun’s alleged history of “manipulative bullying.” 

The masters were later sold to Shamrock Capital in 2020 for approximately $300 million, further complicating her control over her early work.

Swift responded by re-recording her albums, releasing Taylor’s Version editions of Fearless, Red, Speak Now, and 1989 between 2021 and 2023. These re-recordings, which she owns, devalued the original masters while empowering her creatively and financially. 

On May 30, 2025, Swift announced she had bought back her masters from Shamrock Capital, regaining full control of her catalog.