TikTok, UMG Licensing Negotiations Collapse

Universal Music Group (UMG) says it will pull its entire music catalog from TikTok when its contract with the service expires today, accusing the platform of “trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music,” according to Billboard citing a new open letter.

In the letter, released Tuesday and addressed to UMG artists and songwriters, the company states that it’s particularly concerned about the rates that TikTok is offering to pay for its catalog. Other points of contention include the amount of content on TikTok that infringes its artists’ and songwriters’ works without providing “meaningful solutions” to help them combat it, the level of hate and harassment on the platform and TikTok’s stances on artificial intelligence (AI).

“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,” the letter reads.

Also according to UMG, during the negotiations, the ByteDance-owned social giant “demanded a contractual right which would allow [AI] content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists” while “developing tools to enable, promote and encourage AI music creation on the platform itself,” which UMG states is “nothing short of sponsoring artist replacement by AI.”

In the letter, UMG continued by claiming that when it proposed that TikTok take “similar steps as our other platform partners to try to address these issues, it responded first with indifference, and then with intimidation.”

If UMG pulls its catalog, it would affect all music distributed and administered by its recorded-music division as well as Universal Music Publishing Group. The company’s roster includes such megastars as Taylor Swift, BTS, Drake, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Eminem, Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, Karol G and Post Malone.