Taylor Swift attends a premiere for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in Los Angeles, California, U.S., October 11, 2023.
Mario Anzuoni | Reuters
Neatly-liked Song Neighborhood stated Wednesday this also can goal finish licensing its tune to TikTok and accused the short-kind video broad of bullying and intimidation in its contract negotiations.
A tune licensing agreement between UMG and TikTok, which is owned by Chinese language tech broad ByteDance, expired Wednesday, and unusual terms bear no longer been agreed. This implies that UMG could perchance pull its tune catalog from TikTok.
UMG stated in an delivery letter published Wednesday that it has been “pressing” TikTok at some stage in contract discussions on three components — “acceptable compensation for our artists and songwriters, retaining human artists from the corrupt effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.”
The tune sign, which represents megastars from Taylor Swift to Drake, stated that TikTok proposed paying its artists and songwriters “at a price that’s a fraction of the price that equally located main social platforms pay.” UMG stated simplest 1% of its total income comes from TikTok, no topic the social network’s “big and growing particular person heinous, hasty rising promoting income and growing reliance on tune-basically basically based fully converse.”
UMG additionally alleged that TikTok is allowing its platform to be “flooded with AI-generated recordings,” in addition as creating instruments to “enable, promote and encourage AI tune introduction.” Per UMG, TikTok is “tense a contractual appropriate which could perchance per chance allow this converse to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists, in a bound that’s nothing short of sponsoring artist alternative by AI.”
The tune alternate has been grappling with the rise of man made intelligence, which can generate tune and even mimic the voices of chubby artists.
UMG additionally stated that TikTok “makes minute effort to handle the chubby quantities of converse on its platform that infringe” artists’ tune.
The sign firm accused TikTok of bullying and intimidation ways in contract negotiations.
“When we proposed that TikTok takes identical steps as our diversified platform partners to evaluation out to handle these components, it responded first with indifference, after which with intimidation,” UMG stated.
“As our negotiations persevered, TikTok tried to bully us into accepting a deal price decrease than the outdated deal, far decrease than supreme market charge and no longer reflective of their exponential growth. How did it are trying and intimidate us? By selectively eradicating the tune of particular of our creating artists, whereas retaining on the platform our viewers-riding global stars.”
TikTok accuses UMG of ‘greed’ over artists
TikTok responded to UMG’s allegations on Wednesday.
“It is wretched and disappointing that Neatly-liked Song Neighborhood has build their very have greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters,” the firm stated in a press free up.
“With out reference to Neatly-liked’s flawed tale and rhetoric, the truth is that they’ve chosen to stroll far off from the extremely effective enhance of a platform with well over one billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery automobile for their abilities.”
TikTok stated it has been in a position to realize “artist-first agreements with every diversified sign and writer.”
Final year, the firm signed a tune licensing tackle Warner Song Neighborhood.
