Listeners often discovered new music from the video-sharing app TikTok, but not for much longer.
Previously, we reported that UMG (Universal Music Group) announced it would remove its artists’ music from TikTok as their “contract” with the app ended. UMG expressed concerns, including compensation, the danger of AI, and safety for users, as to why it was parting ways with TikTok for now. Read the company’s complete statement, released on January 30, below.
Our core mission is simple: to help our artists & songwriters attain their greatest creative and commercial potential, which is why we must call time out on TikTok.
Learn More: https://t.co/yJDQ7FdgNc pic.twitter.com/Lhluz1ez5H
— Universal Music Group (@UMG) January 31, 2024
Our core mission is simple: to help our artists and songwriters attain their greatest creative and commercial potential. To achieve these goals, our teams employ their expertise and passion to strike deals with partners all around the world, partners who take seriously their responsibilities to fairly compensate our artists and songwriters and treat the user experience with respect.
One of those partners is TikTok, an increasingly influential platform with powerful technology and a massive worldwide user base. As with many other platforms with whom we partner, TikTok’s success as one of the world’s largest social platforms has been built in large part on the music created by our artists and songwriters. Its senior executives proudly state publicly that “music is at the heart of the TikTok experience” and our analysis confirms that the majority of content on TikTok contains music, more than any other major social platform.
The terms of our relationship with TikTok are set by contract, which expires January 31, 2024. In our contract renewal discussions, we have been pressing them on three critical issues—appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.
We have been working to address these and related issues with our other platform partners. For example, our Artist-Centric initiative is designed to update streaming’s remuneration model and better reward artists for the value they deliver to platforms. In the months since its inception, we’re proud that this initiative has been received so positively and taken up by a range of partners, including the largest music platform in the world. We’ve also moved aggressively to embrace the promise of AI while fighting to ensure artists’ rights and interests are protected now and far into the future. In addition, we’ve engaged a number of our platform partners to try to drive positive change for their users and by extension, our artists, by addressing online safety issues, and we are recognized as the industry leader in focusing on music’s broader impact on health and wellness.
With respect to the issue of artist and songwriter compensation, TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay. 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.
Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music.
On AI, TikTok is allowing the platform to be flooded with AI-generated recordings—as well as developing tools to enable, promote and encourage AI music creation on the platform itself – and then 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.
Further, TikTok makes little effort to deal with the vast amounts of content on its platform that infringe our artists’ music and it has offered no meaningful solutions to the rising tide of content adjacency issues, let alone the tidal wave of hate speech, bigotry, bullying and harassment on the platform. The only means available to seek the removal of infringing or problematic content (such as pornographic deepfakes of artists) is through the monumentally cumbersome and inefficient process which equates to the digital equivalent of “Whack-a-Mole.”
But 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.
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.
TikTok’s tactics are obvious: use its platform power to hurt vulnerable artists and try to intimidate us into conceding to a bad deal that undervalues music and shortchanges artists and songwriters as well as their fans.
We will never do that.
We will always fight for our artists and songwriters and stand up for the creative and commercial value of music.
We recognize the challenges that TikTok’s actions will cause, and do not underestimate what this will mean to our artists and their fans who, unfortunately, will be among those subjected to the near-term consequences of TikTok’s unwillingness to strike anything close to a market-rate deal and meaningfully address its obligations as a social platform. But we have an overriding responsibility to our artists to fight for a new agreement under which they are appropriately compensated for their work, on a platform that respects human creativity, in an environment that is safe for all, and effectively moderated.
We honor our responsibilities with the utmost seriousness. Intimidation and threats will never cause us to shirk those responsibilities.
— UMG
TikTok has also directly responded. Many netizens found the app’s statement “petty and unprofessional.”
Artists such as Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and K-Pop groups BTS and BLACKPINK were speculated to be top artists that would be affected. Now that music has begun to be pulled from TikTok, we can say who has and hasn’t been affected so far.
UMG will remove their artists' music from TikTok today, after failing to reach a new agreement.
– Many artists will be affected by this, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, BLACKPINK, Harry Styles, BTS, TWICE, TXT, Bad Bunny, Lady Gaga and more. pic.twitter.com/eIe0ApEq9n
— About Music (@AboutMusicYT) January 31, 2024
Despite concerns, BLACKPINK’s discography appears to be totally unaffected by UMG’s song removals. However, many other K-Pop groups weren’t so lucky.
NCT has been affected. While you can listen to NCT 127‘s “Fact Check” and “Sticker,” you can’t use it in your videos. Unfortunately, many of their songs, including “2 Baddies,” have been muted. So, all those iconic “Baggy Jeans” dance challenges and trends? While the videos are still there, they are muted. Even altered versions, such as the sped-up versions, are unavailable. Interestingly, only NCT DREAM‘s latest release has been affected thus far. So, hit songs like “Candy” are still available.
SM Entertainment groups seem to be some of the most affected as Red Velvet‘s new release is muted, and SuperM songs have also been removed.
TWICE is an unusual case, too. Specific but popular songs, such as “Feel Special,” “Cry For Me,” and “Knock Knock” have been taken down.
P1Harmony‘s English single “Fall In Love Again” is muted in all videos. The rest of their songs are unaffected.
SECRET NUMBER‘s “Doomchita” has been taken down. So far, the rest of their music is still available.
&TEAM‘s entire discography was affected. You’ll see their videos on their TikTok account, but any video that utilized their own music is now muted.
Likewise, TRI.BE‘s discography was taken down as they are directly under UMG. No TikTok users can access their music.
While many were concerned about HYBE groups, they seem to be some of the least affected because their deal with UMG is only for distribution. The one BTS song muted thus far is “Bad Decisions,” but it’s a collaboration with Benny Blanco and Snoop Dogg.
However, Japan-based content has been affected for many groups. So, while &TEAM is HYBE, they are under HYBE Labels Japan specifically. SEVENTEEN‘s and ENHYPEN‘s Japanese songs are also down. Everything on STAYC Japan’s TikTok account is muted as the Japanese versions of all their songs are gone. The same can be said for other groups with Japanese-based content, such as IZ*ONE and CLASS:y.
Some have theorized that only North America has been affected by UMG’s actions. Netizens worldwide have reported that they can still hear many of the abovementioned sounds. While several K-Pop artists were affected, many were unaffected since not everyone is connected to UMG.
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