Fans of the acclaimed Pedro Pascal edit will be disappointed when they realize none of their favorite artists’ music are on TikTok, at least if they are signed to Universal Music Group (UMG). On Feb. 1, after a failed negotiation with the China-based video platform, UMG pulled all of their music from TikTok’s catalog. Affected singers include Taylor Swift, Drake, Luke Bryan, Adele, Bad Bunny and BTS, among many others. Videos previously uploaded using songs of UMG’s artists now feature notes such as “This sound is unavailable” and “Sound removed due to copyright restrictions.”
On Jan. 30, two days before the removal, UMG published “An Open Letter to the Artist and Songwriter Community: Why We Must Call Time Out on TikTok” on their website. In it, they describe TikTok’s refusal to pay their artists at what they say is a fair wage and combat against Artificial Intelligence (AI). When scrolling through TikTok, it is not unheard of to see videos where users have used AI to make their favorite artists cover songs, as demonstrated with the version of Swift’s “Style” where fans added Harry Styles’ singing one of the verses.
“…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 letter said.
On TikTok’s own news website, they released a statement in response to UMG where they state that they have been able to reach ‘artist-first’ agreements with other labels. TikTok also counters UMG with the loss of free marketing efforts and easy talent finding.
“It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters,” the statement said. “Clearly, Universal’s self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans.”
Artists signed to UMG have expressed their concern over the loss of their music. One example is Noah Kahan, Grammy-nominated singer famed for his “Stick Season” album. Kahan’s music went viral thanks to TikTok’s algorithm and skyrocketed his career virtually overnight. Getting tickets to his shows are near equivalent to trying to find a seat at Swift’s Eras Tour: impossible.
“I won’t be able to promote my music on TikTok anymore, but luckily I’m not a TikTok artist, right?” Kahan said sarcastically in a video to his fans on the platform. “I’ll probably be OK, right? I’ll land on my feet, right? Right?”
Kahan, with new single ‘Forever’ coming out on Feb. 9, encouraged fans to pre-save his music since he ‘won’t be able to shove it down their throats’ anymore.
This is not the first time a label has pulled their music from a social media platform before. According to the New York Times, in 2008, Warner Music removed thousands of videos from YouTube, the social media for posting music videos. Fans were unable to view these videos for eight months, which is when Warner Music and YouTube reached a new deal.
It is unknown though whether UMG’s music will return to TikTok. With the threatened TikTok ban, no one can say if TikTok will be around for UMG to put their music back.
