For a while there, people could not use Taylor Swift's songs for their fancam edits or skits, and the same goes for any artist under Universal Music Group due to a licensing issue. TikTok,m despite facing problems like a nationwide ban, has finally come to a deal.
UMG, TikTok Enters a New Licensing Agreement
Now that both parties have agreed to a new deal, millions of tracks are coming back to the short-form video platform for users to add to videos. This time around, there will be certain measures to be followed to prevent encountering the same problem as before.
With the new agreement, UMG Chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said that there will be more focus on the "value of music, the primacy of human artistry, and the welfare of the creative community," as reported by CNBC.
He added that they "look forward to collaborating with the team at TikTok to further the interests of our artists and songwriters and drive innovation in fan engagement while advancing social music monetization.."
TikTok's CEO Shou Zi Chew, on the other hand, expressed that they are committed to working together to promote value, discovery, and promotion for all of the label's artists and songwriters. As a way to support artists, there will be a couple of changes around AI development.
For one, both parties will make sure that it won't step on any artists' toes, just like it did when an AI-generated Drake song was circulated across social media. If their voices are used in AI, then they will be compensated accordingly for their contribution.
With that said, TikTok is now working with UMg to remove unauthorized AI music that is published on the platform. Musicians and songwriters will also be better attributed when their works are used in videos uploaded on the site.
UMG x TikTok Issues
Before the agreement was arranged, there was bad blood between the two company giants, with both sides believing they were in the right. Universal Music previously said that they failed to reach a fair deal with ByteDance over royalties.
With TikTok not wanting to meet UMG's requests, licensed songs were removed from the social media platform. A month after the spat began, more songs were taken out as compositions controlled by Universal Music Publishing Group were also restricted.
As mentioned in Tech Crunch, UMG and UMPG's songs made up about 20% to 30% of the popular tracks on TikTok, a lot of which were from mainstream artists like Billie Eilish, Drake, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, SZA, and many more.
UMG even wrote an open letter to artists, stating that TikTok was attempting to bully the company into accepting a deal "worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth."
TikTok responded to the open letter, which said that it was "sad and disappointing" that Universal Music Group put their own greed above the interest of their artists and songwriters, and that the music giant's intentions were "self-serving."
