Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and other artists songs to be pulled from TikTok amid licensing battle with Universal
From (L-R) Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny pose during the 65th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Some of your favorite artists music may no longer be available on TikTok to enjoy.
After a licensing agreement deal between Universal Music Group and the social media titan expired on Wednesday, the music entity plans to remove artists songs from TikTok.
Universal Music Group represents some of the biggest entertainers in the world, including Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and Drake.
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UMG released a statement Tuesday claiming TikTok tried 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."
"TikTok makes little effort to deal with the vast amounts of content on its platform that infringe our artists’ music and it has offered no meaningful solutions to the rising tide of content adjacency issues, let alone the tidal wave of hate speech, bigotry, bullying and harassment on the platform," the statement continued.
The company also alleged that TikTok attempted to intimidate them by removing music from certain artists while keeping on the platform its "global stars."
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UMG went on to say "TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay. Today, as an indication of how little TikTok compensates artists and songwriters, despite its massive and growing user base, rapidly rising advertising revenue and increasing reliance on music-based content, TikTok accounts for only about 1% of our total revenue."
TikTok responded to UMG’s claims, stating that it has reached ‘artist-first’ agreements with every other label and publisher. The company also added that UMG is putting "their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters," the Associated Press reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was reported from Washington, D.C.