Taylor Swift masters dispute
In June 2019, a dispute emerged between American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and her former record label, Big Machine Records, its founder Scott Borchetta, and its new owner Scooter Braun over the ownership of the masters of her first six studio albums. The private equity firm Shamrock Holdings acquired the masters in 2020, whereupon Swift re-recorded and released four of the albums from 2021 to 2023 to exert control over her music catalog. The dispute drew widespread media coverage and provoked discourse in the entertainment industry. Ultimately, Swift acquired the masters from Shamrock in 2025.
In November 2018, Swift signed a record deal with Republic Records after her Big Machine contract expired. Mainstream media reported in June 2019 that Braun purchased Big Machine from Borchetta for $330 million, funded by various private equity firms. Braun had become the owner of all of the masters, music videos, and artworks copyrighted by Big Machine, including those of Swift's first six studio albums. In response, Swift stated she had tried to purchase the masters but Big Machine had offered unfavorable conditions, and she knew the label would sell them to someone else but did not expect Braun as the buyer, alleging him to be an "incessant, manipulative bully". Borchetta claimed that Swift declined an opportunity to purchase the masters.
Consequently, Big Machine and Swift were embroiled in a series of disagreements leading to further friction; Swift alleged that the label blocked her from performing her songs at the 2019 American Music Awards and using them in her documentary Miss Americana, while Big Machine released Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008, an unreleased work by Swift, without her approval. Swift announced she would re-record the six albums and own the new masters herself. In October 2020, Braun sold the old masters to Shamrock, the Disney family's investment firm, for $405 million under the condition that he keep profiting from the masters. Swift expressed her disapproval again, rejected Shamrock's offer for an equity partnership, and released the re-recorded albums to commercial success and critical acclaim, supporting them with the Eras Tour, which became the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. The tracks "All Too Well " and "Is It Over Now?" topped the Billboard Hot 100, breaking various records. In May 2025, Swift announced full ownership of her catalog after she purchased all the masters from Shamrock under terms she described as fair.
Various musicians, critics, politicians, and scholars supported Swift's stance in 2019, prompting a discourse on artists' rights, intellectual property, private equity, and industrial ethics. iHeartRadio, the largest radio network in the United States, replaced the older versions in its airplay with Swift's re-recorded tracks. Billboard named Swift the "Greatest Pop Star" of 2021 for the successful and unprecedented outcomes of her re-recording venture. A two-part documentary about the dispute, Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun: Bad Blood, was released in 2024. When Swift reclaimed the masters in 2025, journalists considered it a watershed for musicians' rights and ownership of art.
Background
Law
Under U.S. copyright law, a music release is subject to two separate copyrights: the copyright to the song or musical composition itself, and the copyright to the specific recording of that song, which is usually contained on a master. The master is the first recording of the music, from which copies are made for sales and distribution. The owner of the master, therefore, owns the copyright to all formats of the recording, such as digital versions for download or streaming, or physical versions such as CDs and vinyl LPs. A party who wishes to use or reproduce a recording must obtain a copyright license authorized by the master-owner. Before the emergence of digital platforms, musicians relied on record labels to promote their music through means such as airplay or physical distributions to retailers. Labels would typically require artists to give them the rights to the masters "in perpetuity". On the other hand, owning the musical work is referred to as the publishing rights, which covers the musical materials before it became a sound recording—the lyrics, melodies, sheet music, composition, and instrumental arrangements. Songwriters generally own the publishing rights, and are referred to as "publishers" of the music.Under, the exclusive rights in a sound recording "do not extend to the making or duplication of another sound recording that consists entirely of an independent fixation of other sounds, even though such sounds imitate or simulate those in the copyrighted sound recording." This allows recording artists to "record exact replicas" of their original sound recordings even if they did not retain the rights to their masters, as long as they own the rights to the underlying compositions. Many recording contracts close this loophole through restrictive covenants that prohibit artists from re-recording music for a period of time after the contract is terminated.
Context
is a singer-songwriter from West Reading, Pennsylvania, United States. In 2003, at age 13, she visited major record labels in Nashville, Tennessee, for record deals but was rejected. In 2004, Swift performed original songs at an RCA Records showcase, and received an artist development deal, following which she moved to Nashville and worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers. In 2005, she became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house, but left the Sony-owned RCA Records due to her concerns that "development deals may shelve artists". In November 2004, Swift participated in an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Café, where she was noticed by a DreamWorks Records executive, Scott Borchetta, who had an idea of establishing his own independent record label. Eventually, Swift signed a 13-year recording deal with Borchetta's new Nashville-based label, Big Machine Records, as its first recording artist. The deal gave Big Machine the ownership of the masters to Swift's first six albums in exchange for a cash advance.From 2006 to 2017, Swift released six studio albums with Big Machine: Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Reputation, all of which were commercially lucrative and established Swift as one of the most successful music artists in history. Although Big Machine owned the masters, Swift retained the publishing rights to the albums due to her role as the main songwriter of all of the songs she had released under the label. This would allow her to re-record the songs in the future if she desired, as per the artist-label agreement that limits the artist from re-recording a song for a fixed period of time; Swift would not have been able to re-record her musical work had she not been a songwriter.
In August 2018, as per Billboard, Swift's attorney Donald Passman and her management team proposed to Big Machine Label Group that the masters be sold back to Swift as their contract was nearing expiration; the label group responded that it would happen only if she renewed her recording contract with Big Machine, agreeing to create more albums under the label for the next decade. The two parties never arrived at an agreement.
Ultimately, Swift's contract with Big Machine Records expired in November 2018, following which she signed a new global contract with Republic Records, a New York-based label owned by Universal Music Group. Variety reported that Swift's catalog constituted around 80 percent of Big Machine's revenue. Swift revealed a negotiation as part of her Republic contract—any sale of Universal's shares in Spotify, the largest on-demand music streaming platform in the world, resulted in equity shares for all of Universal's artists on a non-recoupable basis. The contract also allowed Swift to fully own the albums distributed by the label—both the masters and the publishing rights—starting with her seventh studio album, Lover, and as reported by Forbes, offered a royalty payment of 50 percent or more compared to the 10 to 15 percent Swift "likely" had been receiving from Big Machine.