- Universal Music Group stated on Wednesday that it will cease licensing its songs to TikTok and accused the small movie giant of bullying and intimidation in its agreement negotiations.
- TiKTok responded that UMG has put “their possess greed over the passions of their artists and songwriters.”
- UMG, which signifies megastars from Taylor Swift to Drake, accused TikTok of attempting to construct a songs-primarily based enterprise “devoid of paying honest value for the audio.”
Common Audio Group stated on Wednesday that it will cease licensing its audio to TikTok and accused the brief-sort video clip big of bullying and intimidation in its contract negotiations.
A tunes licensing agreement in between UMG and TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech huge ByteDance, expired on Wednesday, and new phrases have not been agreed. This signifies that UMG could pull its music catalog from TikTok.
UMG said in an open letter posted on Wednesday that it has been “urgent” TikTok through deal conversations on three concerns — “correct compensation for our artists and songwriters, preserving human artists from the dangerous outcomes of AI, and on the internet basic safety for TikTok’s buyers.”
The music label, which signifies megastars from Taylor Swift to Drake, explained that TikTok proposed spending its artists and songwriters “at a charge that is a fraction of the level that similarly positioned significant social platforms fork out.” UMG claimed only 1% of its overall income arrives from TikTok, despite the social network’s “substantial and increasing user base, rapidly mounting advertising earnings and growing reliance on audio-primarily based content.”
UMG also alleged that TikTok is letting its system to be “flooded with AI-created recordings,” as properly as establishing instruments to “help, endorse and encourage AI songs creation.” According to UMG, TikTok is “demanding a contractual ideal which would make it possible for this written content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists, in a transfer that is nothing at all short of sponsoring artist substitute by AI.”
The music field has been grappling with the increase of synthetic intelligence, which can generate music and even mimic the voices of massive artists.
UMG also reported that TikTok “makes very little effort to deal with the broad amounts of content on its platform that infringe” artists’ audio.
The label corporation accused TikTok of bullying and intimidation techniques in deal negotiations.
“When we proposed that TikTok normally takes similar methods as our other system partners to check out to address these issues, it responded 1st with indifference, and then with intimidation,” UMG claimed.
“As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth much less than the past offer, considerably fewer than good market place value and not reflective of their exponential growth. How did it attempt to intimidate us? By selectively getting rid of the tunes of particular of our developing artists, when trying to keep on the system our audience-driving worldwide stars.”
TikTok accuses UMG of ‘greed’ over artists
TikTok responded to UMG’s allegations on Wednesday.
“It is sad and disappointing that Common Audio Team has put their very own greed previously mentioned the passions of their artists and songwriters,” the enterprise mentioned in a assertion.
“Irrespective of Universal’s untrue narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have preferred to wander absent from the powerful assist of a system with well around a billion users that serves as a free marketing and discovery car or truck for their expertise.”
TikTok mentioned it has been equipped to access “artist-initially agreements with each other label and publisher.”
Very last 12 months, the corporation signed a tunes licensing offer with Warner Music Team.
