Taylor Swift says her master recordings have been sold to a private equity company, denying her the chance to buy back the tapes and resume control over the rights to her first six albums.

The comments follow a long-running feud with her former record company, Big Machine Group, and with music executive Scooter Braun, over the rights to some of her biggest hits, including Shake It Off and You Belong to Me.

Braun bought the Big Machine record label in 2019 after Swift left the label in 2018 for a new deal with Universal Music Group.

He and Swift have been involved in a bitter public dispute since.

Swift, a 10-time Grammy winner, posted to social media on Monday that she received a letter a few weeks ago from private equity company Shamrock Holdings “letting us know that they had brought 100 per cent of my music, videos and album art from Scooter Braun”.

She added that under the terms of the sale, Braun “will continue to profit off my old music catalogue for many years”.

“This was the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge,” the 30-year-old singer posted on Twitter.

The singer is re-recording her old work. Photo: Reuters

Swift also said she had begun re-recording her early songs and it had “proven to be exciting and fulfilling”.

She also indicated in a letter to Shamrock Holdings that she understood the re-recordings would diminish the value of the music rights they bought.

Braun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hollywood trade outlet Variety reported on Monday that Braun had sold the master rights to Swift’s first six albums to an investment fund in a deal believed to be worth more than $300 million.

Variety did not give the name of the investment fund.

Been getting a lot of questions about the recent sale of my old masters. I hope this clears things up. pic.twitter.com/sscKXp2ibD

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 16, 2020

Los Angeles-based Shamrock Holdings could not immediately be contacted for comment.

Last year, Swift accused Braun of convincing two clients, including pop star Justin Bieber, to bully her online about a leaked and illegally recorded snippet of a phone call she had with reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

Scooter Braun bought the Big Machine record label, and rights to Swift’s work with the company, in 2019.Photo: Reuters

Swift said rapper Kanye West, a client of Braun, featured a nude wax figure of her in his Famous music video, and referred to the clip as a “revenge porn music video which strips my body naked”.

She added that Braun had “stripped her” of her life’s work that she “wasn’t given an opportunity to buy”.

–ABC/Reuters