Taylor Swift, Drake, and More Music May Exit TikTok as UMG Licensing Deal Nears End
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Universal Music Group — the recording giant for superstar artists including Taylor Swift, Drake, Olivia Rodrigo, Kendrick Lamar, and Billie Eilish — has issued a stern warning that it will yank its music from TikTok if the companies can’t reach agreement on a new licensing deal.
In an open letter posted online Tuesday evening, the world’s largest music company said its current contract with TikTok was set to expire Wednesday and that the social media platform owned by Chinese company ByteDance was responding with “indifference” or “intimidation” on three important issues: “appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.” UMG said that without a new deal in place after Jan. 31, it will cease licensing content to TikTok and TikTok Music services.
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“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,” the open letter read.
“Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music,” UMG claimed, accusing TikTok of trying to “bully” it into accepting a deal worth even less than the previous deal. UMG alleged that TikTok was resorting to strong-arm tactics, “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,” UMG said. “We will never do that.”
UMG further accused TikTok of “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.” The company described TikTok’s response to AI as “nothing short of sponsoring artist replacement by AI.”
For its part, UMG has been cautious but active in its approach to AI music, partnering with YouTube to launch an AI incubator last year, as well as licensing music for an experimental AI song generator called Dream Track. It’s also pushed for takedowns of AI songs made without licenses and sued the AI company Anthropic.
In a statement sent to Rolling Stone and posted online, TikTok accused UMG officials of putting “their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters” and claimed the music giant’s “narrative” was “false.” The company said its platform boasts “well over a billion users” and “serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle” for Universal’s talent.
“TikTok has been able to reach ‘artist-first’ agreements with every other label and publisher. Clearly, Universal’s self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans,” the company said.
Over the past five years, TikTok has become the most influential music marketing tool in the music industry, launching burgeoning artists’ careers, fanning the flames on viral songs to turn them into hits, and pushing older catalog tracks back to the top of the Billboard charts. TikTok has been the launching pad for numerous massive singles including Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage,” Doja Cat’s “Paint The Town Red,” and SZA’s “Kill Bill,” among others.
Marking its success, the social media company has pointed to hundreds of artists signed to major labels after they first gained popularity on the platform. TikTok’s influence has changed how artists release songs as well. With fans making faster and slower remixes of tracks for TikTok videos, it’s become increasingly common for artists to release those types of remixes as well.
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