Common Music Group, Taylor Swift’s label, to tug music from TikTok

Universal Music Group stated on Wednesday that it’s going to stop licensing its music to TikTok and accused the short-form video large of bullying and intimidation in its contract negotiations.

A music licensing settlement between UMG and TikTok, which is owned by Chinese language tech large ByteDance, expired on Wednesday, and new phrases haven’t been agreed. Which means that UMG may pull its music catalog from TikTok.

UMG stated in an open letter revealed on Wednesday that it has been “pressing” TikTok throughout contract discussions on three points — “appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.”

The music label, which represents megastars from Taylor Swift to Drake, stated that TikTok proposed paying its artists and songwriters “at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay.” UMG stated just one% of its whole income comes from TikTok, regardless of the social community’s “massive and growing user base, rapidly rising advertising revenue and increasing reliance on music-based content.”

UMG additionally alleged that TikTok is permitting its platform to be “flooded with AI-generated recordings,” in addition to growing instruments to “enable, promote and encourage AI music creation.” In response to UMG, TikTok is “demanding a contractual right which would allow this content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists, in a move that is nothing short of sponsoring artist replacement by AI.”

The music trade has been grappling with the rise of synthetic intelligence, which may generate music and even mimic the voices of big artists.

UMG additionally stated that TikTok “makes little effort to deal with the vast amounts of content on its platform that infringe” artists’ music.

The label firm accused TikTok of bullying and intimidation ways in contract negotiations.

“When we proposed that TikTok takes similar steps as our other platform partners to try to address these issues, it responded first with indifference, and then with intimidation,” UMG stated.

“As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth. How did it try to intimidate us?  By selectively removing the music of certain of our developing artists, while keeping on the platform our audience-driving global stars.”