Taylor Swift became tearful describing the moment she learned she had regained ownership of the master recordings for her first six albums. In an August 2025 appearance on the New Heights podcast, she recalled her mother telling her, “You got your music,” and said she hit the floor and cried. The buyback, announced in May 2025, closed a dispute that began after Scooter Braun’s company acquired her former label in 2019.
Why did Taylor Swift cry about her masters?
Swift said the news was overwhelming because owning the recordings would affect the rest of her life. Recalling the moment her mother told her the deal was complete, she said she “dramatically” hit the floor and cried. Her reaction was to the resolution of a years-long ownership dispute, not to a new legal filing or a fresh confrontation with Braun. Mediaite reported her account of the interview.
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Swift described the significance of ownership this way: “Owning your master recordings means that you have complete control and power over distribution, licensing, and essentially the way your legacy is shaped.” That is her explanation of what the milestone means to her, rather than a complete legal definition of master-recording rights.
Did Taylor Swift get her masters back?
Yes. In May 2025, Swift announced that she had bought the master recordings of her first six albums from Shamrock Capital. The financial terms were not disclosed in the cited coverage, so no purchase price or other contract details can be stated as fact. Vanity Fair reported the announcement and that the terms had not been disclosed.
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- Taylor Swift's 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, will be released worldwide October 3, 2025
The recordings had changed hands twice before the buyback. In 2019, Braun’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Records, the label that controlled the masters. Braun sold them to Shamrock in 2020; Swift later bought them from Shamrock. The reported value of Shamrock’s 2020 acquisition is not the price or terms of Swift’s 2025 deal.
How the dispute with Scooter Braun unfolded
Big Machine’s sale and Swift’s response
Swift has said she signed a record deal at 15 and had never owned her music. When Big Machine was acquired by Ithaca Holdings in 2019, the deal put the masters to her first six albums under Braun’s company. Swift objected publicly and said she had not been given the opportunity to buy the recordings outright. She then announced plans to re-record her earlier albums, releasing Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version), according to The Independent’s timeline.
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Competing accounts of earlier negotiations
The parties disagree about whether Swift had a workable chance to purchase the masters before they were sold to Shamrock. Swift said Braun’s team required her to sign a nondisclosure agreement before her team could review financial records and did not provide a price. Braun said he offered to sell under an NDA and that Swift’s team refused. Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta also publicly disputed parts of Swift’s account. Time covered the background and public claims, while Variety reported Braun’s account and the continuing disagreement. The available reporting does not settle which account is correct.
In a 2022 interview, Braun said he wished the acquisition had gone differently and called it a learning lesson. That retrospective comment provides context about his view of the transaction; it does not establish agreement with Swift’s account of the negotiations. The Los Angeles Times reported his remarks.
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What the buyback means—and what remains unknown
The buyback means Swift regained the masters to her first six albums from Shamrock, as she announced in May 2025. The deal terms have not been disclosed in the cited coverage. That leaves the transaction’s price and confidential contract details unknown; it also means the 2020 Shamrock purchase should not be mistaken for the value of Swift’s buyback.
For viewers interested in Braun’s perspective, Apple TV describes the documentary episode “Scooter’s Version” as presenting his account of events. Its listing gives a release date of June 20, 2024, and a runtime of 45 minutes. The listing does not establish current availability in every country. See Apple TV’s episode listing.
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