Taylor Swift's Music Has Been Sold Without Her Consent *Again*

In a tweet posted on Tuesday (Nov. 17), Taylor Swift confirmed that her older music has been sold without her knowledge for the second time in two years. On Monday (Nov. 16), Variety reported that music producer Scooter Braun allegedly sold "the master rights to Swift's first six albums" to an investment firm for $300 million.

Braun bought Swift's previous record label Big Machine in 2019 via his "media holding company" Itaca Holdings, per Variety.

"As you know, for the past year I've been actively trying to regain ownership of my master recordings," Swift said in a statement via Twitter. "With that goal in mind, my team attempted to enter into negotiations with Scooter Braun." Swift goes on to explain how Braun's team allegedly wanted her to sign an NDA which involved her to "never say another word about Braun unless it was positive".

Before Swift issued a statement about the sale, some fans believed that the musician herself may have been the mystery buyer. Twitter user @moftherosa made a connection between the sales figure and a recent Rolling Stone interview, where Swift says "300 million times" twice in the same sentence when talking about playing songs like 'Love Story' and 'Shake It Off'.

But in her statement, the singer refuted any conspiracy theories, making it clear that she wasn't the one behind the purchase.

"A few weeks ago my team received a letter from a private equity company called Shamrock Holdings, letting us know that they had bought 100% of my music, videos, and album art from Scooter Braun. This was the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge. The letter told me that they wanted to reach out before the sale to let me know, but that Scooter Braun had required that they make no contact with me or my team, or the deal would be off."

The musician was "open to the possibility of a partnership with Shamrock", but later learned that "under their terms, Scooter Braun will continue to profit off [her] old musical catalogue for many years." In the tweet, Swift included a letter of response to Shamrock "for transparency and clarification".

"It's a shame to know that I will now be unable to grow the future of these past works and it pains me very deeply to remain separated from the music I spent over a decade creating, but this is a sacrifice I will have to make to keep Scooter Braun out of my life. I'm very sorry he has put you in this position."

Swift went on to confirm that she'd be going ahead with re-recording her old music. "I know this will diminish the value of my old masters," she writes, "but I hope you will understand that this is my only way of regaining the sense of pride I once had when hearing these songs from my first six albums and also allowing my fans to listen to those albums without feelings of guilt benefiting Scooter."