Universal Music, a company that operates in dozens of countries around the world and represents thousands of artists from various genres of music, failed to reach an agreement with the TikTok platform regarding the fees it earns for distributing songs on this social network. In this way, there is a serious possibility that thousands of songs will disappear from the most popular social networking site.
TikTok is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance and currently has about a billion users. The platform was created around sharing songs and dancing, which means that if its users are deprived of music from Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weekend and many other artists, its usage could decline significantly.
Universal accused the Chinese company of being unfair in their negotiations, claiming that they wanted to pay a minimal amount compared to what other platforms pay for access to the same music collection. In an open letter to artists in the field, Universal, which controls 1/3 of the music industry worldwide, argued that TikTok relies on music owned by others to make profits, without paying its share of the copyright.
The company also claimed that it is doing this whole process not only for its own benefit, but also to pay artists their fees, as well as to protect the moral rights of creators, in all its forms. The company also referred to the risks of artificial intelligence tools and the security of TikTok platform users.
The contract between the two companies expires today, January 31st, so decisions need to be made very quickly, otherwise if you want to make a video tomorrow with background music by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who is also very fashionable recently, your searches may not yield any results.
Suggested articles:
