Music giant featuring artists including Taylor Swift and The Weeknd removes songs from TikTok

Universal Music Group (UMG), one of the world’s largest record labels, said it would pull its music from social media platform TikTok this Wednesday due to disagreements over a new contract with the Chinese firm.

The music industry giant has announced that it is ready to remove access to songs by its artists, including superstars Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Bad Bunny and Rosalía, from the platform at midnight this Wednesday when the current contract with TikTok expires. , according to the statement.

Universal accused the Shanghai-based Chinese technology company of using intimidation tactics to force it to accept a contract that was “less fair and less valuable” than the current one, which ends this Tuesday.

In the letter, UMG explained that TikTok had offered to pay artists far less for the playback and use of songs than other social media platforms offer during negotiations for a new contract.

At the same time, UMG said that the social network refused to take sufficient measures to protect artists “from the distribution” of content created by artificial intelligence and copyright infringement.

“TikTok is trying to build a business around music without paying fair value for it,” the same note said.

Major record labels obtain rights from streaming platforms and social media.

For its part, TikTok said it was “sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put its own greed above the interests of its artists,” TikTok said in a statement.

Calling Universal’s claims “false,” TikTok said the record label “has decided to withdraw its strong support for a platform that has over a billion users and serves as a free means to promote and discover your talent.”

TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is one of the most popular social networks in the world with more than one billion users.

Despite this, TikTok makes up only about 1% of Universal’s total turnover, UMG notes.