The first record label Taylor released music through was Big Machine Records. In her contract, she allowed the label to own the masters of her first six albums. Masters are the complete recordings of songs. Taylor owned the composition rights of the albums. This meant the lyrics, instrumentals, and vocals belonged to her. Taylor and Big Machine Records had a good relationship as she released her first six albums.

Big Machine Records was bought by another company in 2018. Taylor did not want to work with this company because it was owned by Scooter Braun. She asked the new company to let her buy the rights to all the masters from her first six albums. But the company would only give her the rights if she signed a contract agreeing to never say a bad word about Scooter again. Taylor refused. She knew they were trying to manipulate her. Scooter’s company sold the masters to someone else.

In 2019, Taylor announced she would take back control of her music by recording every lyric and instrumental from her first six albums again. This way, she would own the final masters. While creating the original albums, Taylor had recorded more songs than were released to the public. When she rerecorded the albums, she also recorded those extra songs again. When she released Taylor’s Versions of Fearless, Speak Now, Red, and 1989, she included the extra songs as well and called them vault tracks.

Taylor finally got the chance to buy back her original masters collection in 2025. She bought them for around $360 million. Many people think she used much of her Eras Tour earnings to accomplish this. Taylor told her fans that she had already rerecorded her entire debut album and part of her album Reputation. Fans might get the chance to hear those rerecorded albums someday!