Universal Music Group, which represents artists including Taylor SwiftDrake, Adele, Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish say they will no longer allow their music on TikTok now that the licensing agreement between the two parties has expired.
UMG said it has not agreed to the terms of a new deal with TikTok and plans to stop licensing content from artists it represents on the ByteDance-owned social media platform as well as TikTok Music services.
The licensing agreement between UMG and TikTok expired on Wednesday.
In a Tuesday letter addressed to artists and songwriters, UMG said it had been pressing TikTok on three issues: “appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for users.” from TikTok.”
UMG said TikTok has proposed paying its artists and songwriters a fee that is a fraction of the fee other major social platforms pay, adding that TikTok only accounts for about 1% of its total revenue.
“Ultimately, TikTok is trying to build a business around music without paying a fair value for music,” UMG said.
TikTok rejected UMG’s claims, saying it has reached “artist-first” agreements with all other record labels and publishers.
“Clearly, Universal’s selfish actions do not serve the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans,” TikTok said.
However, Universal Music also called new technologies a potential threat to artists and said TikTok is developing tools to enable, promote and encourage AI-powered music creation. UMG accused the platform of “demanding a contractual right that would allow this content to greatly dilute the pool of royalties for human artists, in a move that is nothing more than sponsoring the replacement of artists by AI.”
UMG also took issue with what it described as security issues on TikTok. UMG is unhappy with TikTok’s efforts to address what it says is hate speech, bigotry, bullying and harassment. He said removing problematic content from TikTok is a “monumentally complicated and inefficient process that amounts to the digital equivalent of “Whack-a-Mole.”
UMG said it proposed that TikTok take steps similar to those used by some of its other social media platform partners, but that it was met with indifference at first and then intimidation.
“As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to intimidate us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous one, much less than fair market value and not reflecting its exponential growth,” UMG said. Selectively removing music from some of our developing artists while keeping our audience-driving global stars on the platform.”
TikTok, however, said Universal Music is putting “its own greed above the interests of its artists and songwriters.”
