Videos with viral songs have gone quiet on TikTok! On January 31, 2024, Universal Music Group (UMG), the world’s largest record label with $10 billion in annual revenue, announced that they would no longer be granting licences for their artistes’ songs to be used on the video-sharing platform TikTok. The decision, which became effective on February 1, 2024, resulted in approximately 3 million songs from popular artistes such as Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish being removed from the platform.
On January 30, UMG pulled their songs from TikTok following months of negotiation after both parties couldn’t reach an agreement. In an open letter, UMG had accused TikTok of not appropriately compensating its artistes and not ‘protecting human artistes from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.’ As a result of the lack of agreement, TikTok users can no longer use songs from artistes under UMG.
Weeks later, TikTok is taking it a step further. As of Tuesday, February 27, 2024, TikTok has started to remove Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) songs from their platform. This is days ahead of UMPG’s 30-day grace period, which gives TikTok an extra month to use UMG recordings. Officially, TikTok’s licence for UMPG’s catalogue expires on Friday, March 1, 2024, and a renewal of the deal is unlikely since TikTok has already resulted in removing the songs days before its deadline.
Why Is This Important?
Label deals are different from publishing deals. Although artistes signed to Universal Music Group had their songs yanked off the platform first, composers or songwriters signed to Universal Music Publishing Group will also be affected.
UMPG is a subsidiary of UMG. While UMG is a record label, UMPG is a music publishing company that works on ‘behalf of songwriters or composers to collect and pay out all of the royalties they earn from their compositions.’
What Does This Mean For UMPG Artistes?
This means if anyone signed to UMPG has written, produced, or contributed to the publishing of a song, the song in question will be eventually removed by TikTok. It goes further, if an artiste has sampled a song by an artiste under a UMG contract, their song is going to get removed as well.
For Nigerian artistes like Burna Boy, who inked a deal with UMPG in 2018, all his songs are getting removed from the platform. UMPG’s artistes such as Adele, Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Ice Spice, Elton John, Metro Boomin, Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, SZA, the Weeknd, and many others, will also face the same fate.
Burna Boy hit singles like ‘City Boy,’ ‘Its Plenty,’ ‘Last Last,’ ‘Sittin On Top Of The World,’ and a whole lot more have been officially removed from the platform. In recent times, some of Burna Boy’s biggest singles have reached a new wave of audience due to its TikTok challenge, especially with songs like ‘Last Last’ and ‘City Boy.’ With this clamp down, its bye TikTok promotion for Burna Boy and his team.
Other Nigerian artistes affected include Rema with his hit singles ‘Calm Down’ and ‘Charm.’ Tiwa Savage with ‘Somebody’s Son’, ‘Who Is Your Guy remix’ and many more.
Is This A Good Thing For Artistes?
It can be. Over the years, with TikTok dominance, many artistes have complained about how their careers and music are being tailored to the TikTok audience. This move gives them autonomy, especially with established artistes.
However, despite previous pushback from some artistes against the platform and UMG’s claims of unfair revenue, artistes are about to lose their most powerful music promotion platform alongside royalties. Top artistes like Taylor Swift and The Weeknd might be unaffected, but songwriters and producers who have collaborated with other artistes are at a disadvantage.
Regardless of the impact on UMG artiste, this can also be an opportunity for independent artistes. With all the world stars having their music recently removed from the platform, TikTok’s over 1 billion users need new songs for their creations. This means these users get to explore songs from independent artistes who currently use the platform to promote their music.
Who Stands To Lose Out In This Face Off?
Everyone! The face-off, first of all, affects the artistes who had no say in whether their work will be removed from the platform, which is said to impact streaming numbers as ‘62% of TikTok users are paid streamers, compared to 43% of average music listeners in the US.’
There’s also the effect this face-off has on the multi-billion dollar companies whose struggle to gain more money has made them go into an ego battle that doesn’t only stunts TikTok’s growth but affects the publicity that UMG artistes get from the platform.
However, TikTok’s spokesperson claims that ‘TikTok can confirm that in the US and UK, UMG and UMPG combined is approximately 30% of popular music on the platform, and even less everywhere else.’ Industry insiders have claimed otherwise, with some stating that about ‘80% of TikTok’s music catalogue will be affected.
Regardless, the numbers show everyone is at a loss. The big question is when are these companies going to reach a compromise for the sake of the talents being tossed around in this power tussle?