TikTok will no longer be able to use Universal Music music – Kommersant

Universal Music Group (UMG) and TikTok were unable to agree on the terms of a new licensing agreement. The current one expires today, January 31st. The failure of the negotiations means that users of the Chinese social network will no longer be able to use the music of artists who are clients of Universal Music.

IN open letter, published after negotiations failed, UMG said it always protects the interests of artists. The world’s largest label said it demanded that TikTok executives fulfill three points: increasing the amount of royalties to artists for the use of their music by users of the social network; preventing the use of AI to process and modify the musical works of artists signed to the label; tightening the fight against manifestations of aggression among social network users.

“We are working on these and similar issues with our other partners,” UMG said in the letter. “With respect to the issue of compensation for artists and songwriters, TikTok has offered to pay our artists and songwriters at a rate that is significantly less than what similar major social platforms.” UMG noted that TikTok accounts for only 1% of the label’s total revenue, despite its user base of 1 billion people.

TikTok executives, in turn, released a much briefer statement expressing “regret and disappointment at Universal Music Group’s decision to put its own greed above the interests of its artists and songwriters.” “Despite Universal’s false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is that they have chosen to abandon the powerful support of a platform with over a billion users that serves as a free means of promoting and discovering their own talent,” TikTok said.

Kirill Sarkhanyants