UMG, the world’s biggest music company, says they will remove their artists’ music from TikTok this Wednesday when their contract expires after failing to reach a new agreement with the platform.

 

They have failed to reach an agreement on fair compensation and AI protections.

 

This will affect music from artists such as: Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, BTS, Bad Bunny, Lady Gaga and many more.

 

Source: https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/unive...deal-1235892437

 

What are your thoughts? Will this move have a significant impact on the charts? :o

I'm fully expecting this to be resolved quite quickly. It would be hugely detrimental to both Tiktok and UMG's artists to have this drag on.

Edited January 31, 20241 yr by Rob

Yeah it's not going to last long.

If that was the case though, surely UMG speaking out like this will further drive a wedge between them and TikTok? If they were going to resolve it, wouldn't it have happened behind closed doors before the contract expired? UMG must be quite firm that withdrawing is the better step for the company than going along with what they regard as non-compliance on TikTok's part.

 

I mean... they've both fired shots, who is going to back down after this?

 

Universal accused TikTok of "bullying" and said it wanted to pay a "fraction" of the rate other social media sites do for access to its vast catalogue.

 

TikTok said Universal was presenting a "false narrative and rhetoric".

Anything that helps Tiktok die is good by me.

If that was the case though, surely UMG speaking out like this will further drive a wedge between them and TikTok? If they were going to resolve it, wouldn't it have happened behind closed doors before the contract expired? UMG must be quite firm that withdrawing is the better step for the company than going along with what they regard as non-compliance on TikTok's part.

 

I mean... they've both fired shots, who is going to back down after this?

 

Universal accused TikTok of "bullying" and said it wanted to pay a "fraction" of the rate other social media sites do for access to its vast catalogue.

 

TikTok said Universal was presenting a "false narrative and rhetoric".

 

Whoever gets paid a lot of money by the other I assume. :lol: They will be best friends after that.

 

In the corporate world you can invite your intended targets to a big dinner party, invite all the most important people you know, rent the most beautiful venue you can, give them extremely expensive champagne, book the nicest hotel in the city for them, the nicest limosines, shower them with complements, fly them out first class, etc, and suddenly the other party is willing to sign the deal you want.

 

So I think it can be sorted out.

Well TikTok is great promotion at the same time but as far as copyright goes it’s very weak everything is on there that would be removed on YouTube

Surely this will harm UMG more than Tik Tok? Won't content creators just move on to artists from other labels that they can find who are relevant to their content? Tik Tok is too powerful a platform for music artists right now and UMG will probably see a bit of a dip.

 

AI use needs to be chased after absolutely. But it's essentially free promo when people use your songs in their videos etc.. no?

Love that Universal are doing this - I’m sure their hand is being pushed by some of their biggest artists too, and if correct as reported that TikTok have removed lesser known Universal artists from the platform but left the bigger players then they are right to call it out.

 

Without Universal there will be a hefty amount of huge artists and their music not available on there which in turn prevents feverish fan bases using the platform to promote their favourite artists so both will lose unless a solution is found.

I do understand why Universal are doing this, it's a bit like being a singer, artist or writer where you're expected to offer services for free or pittance sometimes 'in return for the exposure'. TikTok feels a bit like that sometimes - yes ok the exposure means there's a small chance of artists and songs going viral, and 'free exposure' is great, but imo any music that is being used hundreds of thousands of times and therefore benefitting the success of a global corporate platform and helping their advertisers' clicks etc also needs to be paid for fairly.

 

Having said that, I hope a deal is reached soon as it really will cut off a lot of viral hits from the Universal stable. Isn't Sophie under Universal (as it's part of Polydor)? So no new videos will be able to use Murder on the Dancefloor now?

 

As an aside, Wardy noticed earlier in the week that a number of songs were temporarily removed from Spotify, including Lonely Together by Avicii and Rita Ora, Man's Not Hot by Big Shaq and Hurtin' Me by Stefflon Don. They seemed to be gone for about 48 hours but are now back and I noticed at the time that all three are on Universal. Maybe they were having some sort of catalogue tidy, and I'm sure it's completely unrelated, but it also struck me as quite unexpected at the time.

Edited February 1, 20241 yr by gooddelta

It’s happened! Just tried searching for Lady Gaga sounds and it’s all just unofficial stuff. Now we wait and see what sort of impact this has.

Everybody bout to move to Youtube shorts & Instagram reels now

Surely this will harm UMG more than Tik Tok? Won't content creators just move on to artists from other labels that they can find who are relevant to their content? Tik Tok is too powerful a platform for music artists right now and UMG will probably see a bit of a dip.

 

AI use needs to be chased after absolutely. But it's essentially free promo when people use your songs in their videos etc.. no?

I disagree I think it does tiktok more harm, people will just move to another platform if they want to hear about music artists. The is plenty of other platforms to choose from.

I think you would need all record labels to remove their music for it to harm TikTok. It just leaves the smaller up and coming artist's that rely on TikTok to get their name out there at a disadvantage.

I think the impact is bigger on TikTok than Universal - they are home to so many big and up and coming artists that fans of those will find other avenues/platforms to support their faves on.

I don't think this will harm TikTok at all personally, it just means all the viral songs there will be from other labels surely? I'm not sure the average TikTok user cares or will even notice that the sounds on there don't include any UMG artists.

 

(I also fully expect this won't last long anyway)

TBH whilst I don't use or have any desire to use TikTok in future, this is not the first time UMG have been in a situation like this. About 15 years ago they had their whole "removing artists and songs" from YouTube because of a similar dispute.

 

I seem to remember specifically around the time I went to uni (September 2009) you suddenly couldn't watch any of The Saturdays TV performances on YouTube for example (annoying for me as I didn't have a telly at that point), as they were signed to Polydor (part of UMG). My feeling is that for both sides, they'll want to resolve it as swiftly as possible, but in UMG's case they've taken the approach that needs to be taken.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGekDevKc/

 

Sophie replacing her song with an acapella version

Took a bit longer than I thought but as expected some kind of deal has been reached and UMG artists are coming back to TikTok.