On Tuesday Eastern Time, Universal Music Group warned that it would remove its songs from social media giant TikTok due to failure to reach an agreement on a new licensing contract. What is somewhat surprising is that Universal Music claimed that the reason why the company chose to part ways with TikTok, in addition to the failure to negotiate the renewal price, also included the two parties’ differences in attitudes towards artificial intelligence.
Universal Music breaks up with TikTok?
Late Tuesday local time, Universal Music Group released an open letter to artists and songwriters. Universal Music claimed in the letter that it "will stop licensing content to TikTok and the TikTok Music Service" after the current contract expires on Wednesday.
Universal Music previously reached a licensing agreement with TikTok in February 2021, and the agreement will expire in February this year.
Universal Music accused TikTok of “trying to build a music-based business without paying a fair price for the music.”
Universal Music emphasized that its analysis found that "the majority of content on TikTok" contains music, more than on other social networks. TikTok only accounts for 1% of Universal Music’s revenue.
Universal Music accused: "TikTok is trying to bully us into accepting a deal that is worth less than the previous deal, well below fair market value, and does not reflect their exponential growth."
TikTok responded in a statement on Tuesday night: "It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put its own greed before the interests of artists and songwriters," claiming that Universal Music "has chosen to leave the strong support of a platform with more than 1 billion users that serves as a free promotion and discovery tool for their talent."
Misuse of artificial intelligence raises concerns
Universal Music stated in the letter that its differences with TikTok mainly focus onCompensation for artists, protection of human artists from “harmful effects” of artificial intelligence, online safety of TikTok usersand three key questions.
“TikTok proposes to pay our artists and songwriters a fraction of the compensation fees paid to other similar social platforms,” Universal Music said.
Universal Music also said in a statement:
“On the AI side, TikTok allows the platform to be flooded with AI-generated recordings while developing tools to support, promote and encourage AI music creation on the platform, and then demands a contractual right to allow that content to massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists,This move is tantamount to supporting the replacement of artists with artificial intelligence. "
Universal Music also complained:
“TikTok has made little effort to address the overwhelming amount of content on its platform that infringes on our artists’ music, and has provided no meaningful solutions to the growing content adjacency issues, not to mention the wave of hate speech, bigotry, bullying and harassment on the platform.The only feasible way to remove infringing or questionable content (such as pornographic deepfakes of artists) is through an extremely cumbersome and inefficient process, which is the digital equivalent of whack-a-mole.
Universal Music is one of the world's largest music companies, and its artists include superstars Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber, Adele, Elton John and Bob Dylan.