Taylor first announced her intention to rerecord her first six albums in August 2019 after Big Machine Records — and, therefore, the master recordings she left behind when she signed to a new label in 2018 — were acquired by Scooter Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings.
In a post on her Tumblr account, Taylor called the move her “worst nightmare,” referencing the “incessant, manipulative bullying” she said she experienced at the hands of Braun and his clients, who included Kanye West and Justin Bieber.
Braun’s acquisition of her masters meant that any time Taylor’s music was licensed or streamed, he and his company would make a profit from it. And so, Taylor decided, she would refuse to license her original music for use in movies, TV shows, and ads, and would instead release rerecorded versions of the albums Braun now owned in order to minimize any profit he could make from her work.