Common Music Group (UMG), the label representing artists together with Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande, says that it’ll pull its music from TikTok tomorrow at midnight after failing to succeed in a take care of the platform’s father or mother firm, ByteDance, over royalties.
UMG gained’t search to resume its present association with TikTok, set to run out on January 31, and plans to stop licensing content material to each TikTok and its music-focused service, TikTok Music.
In a press launch, UMG accused TikTok — which reportedly made near $20 billion in advert income final 12 months — of making an attempt to construct a “music-based business without paying fair value for [artists’] music.”
“TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay,” the label wrote. “Today, as an indication of how little TikTok compensates artists and songwriters, despite its massive and growing user base, rapidly rising advertising revenue and increasing reliance on music-based content, TikTok accounts for only about 1% of our total revenue.”
TikTok didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The best way UMG tells it within the press launch, TikTok and it didn’t see eye to eye on funds for AI-generated recordings utilizing UMG properties. As well as, TikTok wasn’t taking applicable steps to swiftly take away content material in violation of the label’s copyright, UMG says.
“Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music,” UMG wrote.
UMG’s present contract with TikTok dates again to 2021, and covers recorded music from artists at UMG’s labels and songwriters related to Common Music Publishing Group. As part of the deal, UMG and TikTok agreed to experiment with new options, like permitting customers to include clips from UMG’s full catalog of music spanning Unhealthy Bunny, SZA, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Harry Types, Justin Bieber, Adele, U2 and Elton John.
The fallout with UMG comes as TikTok leans extra closely into music creation and curation.
The platform is positioning TikTok Music, which launched final 12 months in choose nations, as a critical Spotify and Apple Music rival. In the meantime, TikTok is piloting an “AI Song” function that makes use of AI to create songs primarily based on prompts that customers enter.
Whereas TikTok has proven a willingness to have interaction with sure labels on phrases it finds favorable — the platform was reportedly in talks with Warner Music Group, Sony Music Leisure and UMG “all year” in 2022 and 2023 for a share of its advert revenues — it hasn’t been shy about throwing its weight round the place it sees match. Final February, TikTok eliminated main file firm music from its service for a subset of customers in Australia in an obvious take a look at to see how consumer engagement could be impacted.
Just lately, TikTok has sought to ink unique distribution offers with musicians for ByteDance’s SoundOn service, which distributes on to TikTok and music streaming companies. It’s additionally launched a program, known as Elevate, designed to establish the subsequent wave of rising artists within the music trade.
