Universal Music Group versus TikTok: Will UMG live to regret severing all ties with the platform?
JAME Consulting, LLC
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By: Addi Barrett – Independent Singer/Songwriter
Contributing Writer: JAME Consulting, LLC
Follow Addi on Instagram @addiaprilsongs and @BarrettxBand
February 9, 2024
In recent music industry news, Universal Music Group has announced and enacted their plans to remove all the music released by artists on their roster from TikTok’s platform after their license agreement expired on January 31. As of February 1st, all songs currently owned by UMG have been muted when accessed on TikTok. This means that the videos created by the billions of users throughout TikTok’s history using music from the likes of the Beatles, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Bob Dylan and many more household UMG artist names have now gone silent. While the removal of content on such a recent social media platform might not seem like that big of a deal, keep in mind that nearly 2.5 million videos have been made to date using Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” alone. [1]
In a formal statement, entitled, “An Open Letter to the Artist and Songwriter Community - Why We Must Call Time Out on TikTok” Universal Music Group begins with a call to action directed towards individual TikTok creators themselves. Stating that the reason they have decided not to renew their licensing agreement with company is that, “TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay,” going on to write that,? “As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth. [2]” In their letter, UMG also points fingers at the platform's efforts to incorporate AI-generated features and sounds as an attempt to “dilute the royalty pool for human artists.” This conversation about the extent of AI technology being incorporated in the marketplace is, of course, taking place across many industries. The ethics of AI-generated music and art is a multi-faceted, at times tense topic of debate and deserves its own article.
TikTok responded to UMG by stating that, “It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.” Continuing on to claim that Universal is spreading a “false narrative” about attempts at intimidation, and boasting that “TikTok has been able to reach 'artist-first' agreements with every other label and publisher. Clearly, Universal's self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans. [3]”
? It seems that while most consumers understand the intent behind UMG’s decision to remove their catalog TikTok, many are hopeful that a new agreement will be reached. Because many of the songs that climbed to the tops of Global and US Charts in recent years owe a huge portion of their streaming numbers to their success on TikTok, it’s safe to say that the fans that helped promote music by breakout artists like Ice Spice and Olivia Rodrigo are not happy with the fallout of this corporate feud.
You may be asking yourself, “Why Tiktok?” Why is this particular social media platform such a big deal right now? Well, upon its release, TikTok began as an app specifically for people to sing and dance along to trending music. It has since expanded into the swiss army knife of social media, combining short and long form video content, photo sharing and livestream capabilities. The thing that makes TikTok so powerful as a tool for music discovery is the way the algorithm is designed. On TikTok, it can be much easier for a song to “go viral” overnight because the platform is built to push content on a global community scale. The “For You” Page acts as an endless stream of algorithm-selected videos being pushed out to billions of scrolling users based on interest and interactions with the content in real time. For this reason, every time you post a video, people you have most likely never met, grouped by the type of content they are most interested in, are much more likely not only to stumble upon your account, but also to stick around.
For example, as a fully independent artist, every time I upload a new song to TikTok I know that I will show up on anywhere from hundreds to thousands of people’s pages who have an interest in original music (even without paying for ads and boosting reach). If from there, even a fraction of those new followers watch it, interact with it, and then follow my account, they can eventually discover my website and other links to my music. In short, TikTok serves as an excellent funnel for new fans and customers alike.
Since UMG’s announcement to not renew their licensing with TikTok, any user that created videos using music owned by the label has now been given the option to swap out the previous song for similar music owned and licensed by UMG’s competitors. While it’s unlikely that the careers of mega stars like Taylor Swift and Drake will suffer due to this setback, many of UMG’s smaller artists have expressed very real concerns about their future with the label. They will now have to deal with the inevitable consequences of having to mobilize growing fan bases outside of one of the best platforms for promoting their music. The irony for some artists of having at one point been “discovered” by UMG on TikTok only to have all their content removed is not lost on them. Many of these more recently signed songwriters have been sharing throughout their journey how important it is, or in UMG’s case was, to their respective labels that they continue to post and create new content for TikTok in an effort to go viral.
In a video made by artist Cody Fry, one of the first UMG artists to speak out about the situation, he summarizes for the TikTok community what he most wanted to get across in an interview he gave to Rolling Stone, “UMG and TikTok, they’re going to be totally fine, but the cost of this battle is going to be born by artists like me, the people on the ground who are just trying to make music and market it.”
-(@CodyFryMusic)
We will have to wait and see whether UMG’s stand against TikTok will catch on to the other major labels with leverage and influence. Will their self-imposed alienation be enough to cause any TikTok policy changes? Or is it up to the artists and songwriters on the platform to stand together and demand higher music compensation? Ultimately, who do you think will suffer the most consequences of this decision?
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