Taylor Swift for the WIN!

Swift posted on her Instagram Friday that she has bought back the masters of her first six studio albums.

“I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away,” she wrote in a letter to fans. “But that’s all in the past now. All of the music I’ve ever made … now belongs … to me,” she wrote in a letter posted to her website.

Swift lost the rights to those masters in 2019 when her first record label, Big Machine, sold them to music executive Scooter Braun. Swift has said she had not been given the opportunity to buy her work outright, but would be allowed to “earn” one album back for each new album she recorded for the label. Swift moved to Republic Records for all albums released past 2019.

Swift chose to re-record those first six albums, Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014), and Reputation (2017), releasing the new version under the albums title, with Taylor’s Version added on. Reputation has yet to be rereleased as Taylor’s Version.

Swift added that she now had ownership of all of her music videos, concert films, album art and photography and unreleased songs.

It is rare for an artist to own their master recordings, but doing so allows them greater control of, and profit from, their catalog. In addition to albums sales, whoever controls the masters will profit from licensing songs for movies or video games. Copyrights for songwriting are separate, and though artists do receive royalties when their songs are used, ownership of the songs themselves is far more lucrative.

Swifties, or Taylor Swift fans, who have been anticipating Reputation (Taylor’s Version) may or may not see that album published now that she owns the original master, but Swift herself hasn’t ruled that out.

Swift concluded her letter with a message highlighting the importance of the fight.

I’m extremely heartened by the conversations this saga has reignited within my industry among artists and fans. Every time a new artist tells me they negotiated to own their master recordings in their record contract because of this fight, I’m reminded of how important it was for all of this to happen. Thank you for being curious about something that used to be thought of as too industry-centric for broad discussion. You’ll never know how much it means to me that you cared. Every single bit of it counted and ended us up here.

Thanks to you and your goodwill, teamwork and encouragement, the best things that have ever been mine… finally actually are.

Elated and amazed,

Taylor