On Tuesday (Jan. 30), Universal Music Group announced its plans to remove its entire music catalog from TikTok after their contract expired yesterday (Jan. 31).
“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,” a spokesperson from the music corporation said in an open letter.“
“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,” the letter continued. “Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music.”
In response, TikTok released a statement. “It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters. Despite Universal’s false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent,” it read. “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.”
UMG owns the rights to catalogs from some of the world’s biggest superstars like Drake, Bad Bunny, Nicki Minaj, Adele, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, BTS, The Weeknd, SZA, and Post Malone, just to name a few.