UMG will not renew its contract with TikTok, claiming that the platform would not adequately address issues such as artist compensation, user safety, and the increasing prevalence of AI-generated music
Universal Music Group (UMG) plans to sever ties with TikTok, the label and publishing company announced Tuesday (January 30) in an open letter addressed to the “artist and songwriter community.” UMG revealed that, as of today, its negotiations for a new contract with TikTok have ended without an agreement, and that the expiring contract will not be renewed. That means that, if a new contract is not agreed upon today, music by artists including Taylor Swift, Drake, and Bad Bunny will not be available for use in videos on the social media platform.
In its statement, UMG claimed that it will cease licensing content to TikTok due to conflicting approaches to critical industry issues, specifically, how the platform plans to address artist compensation, TikTok user safety, and the growing prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI). UMG alleges that TikTok proposed paying its artists “a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay,” and that the service “has offered no meaningful solutions” to content issues like bullying, bigotry, and harassment, including pornographic deepfakes of artists. Find UMG’s full letter below.
Looks like “clock app” (as many call it) is shifting into the final stage of its enshittification process, if even business partnerships are being blown off. No doubt many on here will be reflexively happy about that but it’s really just sad to me every time I see potential wasted in any form.
TikTok is getting better. Not worse. It used to only be people lazy dancing to music half naked, and for sex workers to self-promote. Now it’s moving towards longer form and more thoughtful content. It’s not 100% there and it likely never will be, but it’s improving. It’s not getting worse.
So the algorithm has calibrated your feed to your personal preferences, just as it does for everyone else. Good for you.
Meanwhile for anyone wondering,
regular creators are having all kinds of problems with everything from changes to misleading and unfavourable monetization schemes to managing comments on their vids,
political creators aren’t only having their content ignored when they meet thresholds that would propel non-political vids to be promoted (with often the very same person’s record of political and non-political vids that are more commercially viable showing this difference), they’re being silenced with strikes for “unoriginal content,”
users presumably who use the phone app (which I don’t, lol) are complaining of increasing ads,
and everyone who tries to speak out against hate speech/bullying/harassment/trolls somehow gets punished for defending themselves.
What a fun environment! So not a hot mess at all /s
All those problems aren’t new. That’s what it’s always been like.
The political ones are new. The others have worsened.