Yesterday, Universal Music Group (UMG) released an open letter to the popular social media platform TikTok. UMG is a leading music company that partners with TikTok to promote its music. This partnership will expire on January 31, 2024. The contract has not yet been renewed due to a rift between the two companies.
After the contract expires, UMG will delete all audio from TikTok's music catalog. This means that TikTok will not legally own the 3 million recorded tracks and 4 million songs published by UMG.
This issue arises because UMG has three major concerns about TikTok and its practices.
In the letter, UMG expressed concerns about protecting artists from artificial intelligence and AI-generated content, the safety of TikTok users, and the way UMG artists are compensated for their music.
The company clarified that, unlike TikTok, other partners are well on their way to addressing these issues. UMG also mentioned that its "artist-centric" initiatives are working to provide artists with appropriate compensation and protect their rights. UMG wrote:
"On the issue of remuneration of artists and songwriters, TikTok proposes to pay artists and songwriters only a fraction of similar major social platforms. Today, despite TikTok's large and growing user base, rapidly growing advertising revenue, and increasing reliance on music content, TikTok's revenue only accounts for about 1% of our total revenue, which is enough to illustrate how little TikTok compensates artists and songwriters.
Regarding artificial intelligence, UMG believes that TikTok encourages artificial intelligence to generate music and videos through the content tools it provides. TikTok also promotes such content by offering contractual rights, it wrote, calling this "out-and-out sponsored AI replacement of artists."
The music company further explained that TikTok does not effectively handle hate speech and content adjacency issues. This means algorithms may place a company's ads next to negative or inappropriate content.
The letter goes on to disclose incidents that have made it more difficult to maintain a cooperative relationship with TikTok. UMG said that when it asked TikTok to address its concerns, the partner proposed a deal that was worth less than its previous deal. It also removed content from new UMG artists but kept music from artists beloved by TikTok’s audience.
The letter accused Bytedance's platform of "intimidating" UMG, being "indifferent" and trying to "bully" UMG into signing a bad agreement.
In response to these accusations, TikTok released the following news in the press room today:
It's sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group is putting its own greed over the interests of artists and songwriters.
While Universal's claims and rhetoric are untrue, the fact is that they have chosen to abandon the powerful support of a platform with over a billion users that serves as their free promotion and talent discovery tool.
TikTok already has 'artist first' deals with all other record labels and publishers. Clearly, Universal Records’ selfish actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans.
Earlier this month, TikTok also came under fire for allegedly having incorrect age ratings in different app stores. It has repeatedly raised concerns about its content and practices.