Been wondering why your ‘For You’ page has gone so quiet? Are you cringing at all those videos in your drafts that suddenly just have you lip syncing to… nothing? It’s because Universal Music Group, the music label that houses the likes of Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, SZA, Ariana Grande, Drake and Harry Styles expired its contract with TikTok on 31st January this year. Whilst mashups and remixes of ‘sped up’ versions of songs are still available, they may not be for much longer, with TikTok considering permanently removing UMG’s catalogue on the app.
In an open letter published by UMG the day before the contract ended, the company cited three reasons for the decision: the need for “appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.” So, lets unpick the issues to see when we might possibly get these artists songs back on the platform.
Pay and royalties is the first concern for UMG, and rightly so. Currently, TikTok pays just $0.03 (£0.02) for each video that uses an artist’s music – that’s just $30 for every 1000 views. Even then, artists still need to spilt their royalties with their music distributor, agent, manager, the list goes on. But you may ask, why do artists like Olivia Rodrigo, who have over 50 million views on TikTok – translating to $1,500,000 in royalties – care? In UMG’s own words, “TikTok proposed paying our artists at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay.” So, when you consider that TikTok accounts for only 1% of UMG’s total revenue, maybe TikTok needs to reconsider its pricing.
Secondly, the dangers of TikTok for UMG and all music artists is grave. The flooding of AI-generated recordings and the active promotion of AI music creation on the platform without the respect and consent of artists intellectual property is a massive problem. TikTok’s current absence of regulation on AI creation encourages human artist replacement, a problem that threatens music creators and icons, as well as the industry of human music creation entirely.
Lastly, lack of online safety for TikTok users is an issue facing all social media platforms. UMG accuses TikTok of making ‘little effort’ to tackle the large amount of content adjacency issues (songs being used in the background of problematic / contentious posts and videos). Furthermore, the insufficient regulation of the ‘tidal wave’ of hate speech, bigotry, bullying, and harassment poses a major risk not just to the reputation of UMG’s artists, but also to the online audience of TikTok users.
TikTok’s response to these requests from UMG? To selectively remove minor and developing artists signed to the Universal Music Group from the platform – an intimidation tactic that only succeeded in hurting developing artists. UMG’s decision to withdraw its entire catalogue followed a few days later.
So bad luck everyone, it doesn’t look like this dispute will be solved anytime soon. UMG has made its position overwhelmingly clear, and TikTok surely has no choice but to accommodate and adapt to the issues UMG has laid out. The CEO of UMG, Sir Lucian Grainge (father-in-law of ‘it’ girl Sofia Richie-Grainge) stated “I have seen this movie before. I know how it ends.” And with UMG representing a massive proportion of the current global music icons, surely TikTok has no option but to meet the demands of UMG. It’s inconvenient to TikTok users, but instead of protesting UMG’s decision, we should be campaigning for TikTok to fix these issues; for the welfare and protection of our favourite music artists, but also for the safety and protection of TikTok users.
Written By: Bella Greenstock
Edited By: Grace Tickner