Taylor Swift announced on Friday, May 30, that she has regained ownership of her masters from Shamrock Capital, the private equity firm that acquired them from Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in late 2020. According to sources, Shamrock sold Swift’s catalog to her for a relatively close amount to what they paid for it, about $360 million.
In a message on her website, Taylor Swift said, “All the music I’ve ever made… now belongs to me. All my music videos. All the concert films. The album covers and photographs. The unreleased songs. The memories. The magic. The madness. Every era. My life’s work.”
In her announcement, Swift expressed her gratitude and praised Shamrock for the way they handled the deal, noting that they understood the deep personal significance of the transaction. “My memories, my sweat, my handwriting, and my decades of dreams,” she wrote. “I’m infinitely grateful. My first tattoo could be a giant shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”
Taylor Swift’s masters history dates back to June 2019, when Ithaca acquired Big Machine Label Group, then the owner of her first six albums, for an estimated $300 million. Swift’s catalog was worth at least half that amount, according to estimates at the time. Over the years, Swift has publicly expressed her dissatisfaction with the manipulation of her masters and then began re-recording those albums to regain commercial control of her songs.
Her re-recording journey began with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in April 2021, followed by Red (Taylor’s Version) in November 2021. In 2023, she released Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Fans are still eagerly awaiting the re-recording of her self-titled debut album and Reputation.
Since leaving Big Machine in November 2018, she has released five more albums on Republic Records: Lover (2019), Folkore (2020), Evermore (2020), Midnights (2022), and The Tortured Poets Department (2024). She also performed on the career-defining Eras Tour, which rewrote the rules of concert touring and massively boosted streams and sales of her entire catalog, including re-recordings.
