UMG Qualm with TikTok Won’t Last Forever

On Feb. 1, Universal Music Group removed all its recorded music catalog from TikTok. In an open letter publically released on Jan. 30, the company cited three ‘critical’ issues for terminating their TikTok contract: “appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of A.I. and online safety for TikTok’s users.” 

UMG is asking for more money for its artists, A.I. covers to be wiped from the platform and citing “pornographic deep fakes of artists” as the type of content they would want removed for negatively impacting the safety of TikTok users.

This development comes in the wake of UMG CEO Lucian Grainge emphasizing his commitment to what he dubs the “artist-centric” strategy, where the label will focus its resources on artists with large and loyal fanbases rather than invest in a vast catalog of other artists. Earlier this year, Grainge stated how “superfan experiences and products” will be the next step in this approach, creating chances for fans to interact with their favorite artists in deeper and different ways. 

This shift by UMG is relevant because TikTok is a bridge between Instagram's curated feeds and the on-the-fly posts and streams of sites like Twitter and Twitch. An artist on TikTok can post algorithm-pleasing content to their song in the background as both promotional and artist-engagement content. With UMG removing its catalog from the site, it prevents artists from engaging with their fanbase in this quasi-intimate way. 

More music will be taken off of the site when publishing licenses expire, which end at the end of February 2024, according to The Price of Music, a music industry podcast. What this means is artists who have their written songs owned by UMG will also have those songs removed, even if a non-UMG label owns their recorded songs.

Two artists in this category include SZA and Harry Styles. SZA’s “Kill Bill” and Styles’ “As It Was” contain chords and lyrics they wrote themselves and are owned by the Universal Music Publishing Group. However, the finished recordings, the TikTok sounds, are owned by Sony Music Entertainment. So far, 2.5 million songs have already been removed as a result of the recorded music licensing deal expiring, muting TikTok videos. More songs may be removed from the site through the expiration of its songwriting contracts.

Taylor Swift’s music getting taken off of TikTok is a bigger issue for fans than it is for Taylor Swift. This is true for all large artists signed to the label. In the open letter by UMG, the letter clarifies that TikTok only accounts for “about 1% of our total revenue.” A drop of water in an ocean of money for those at the very top of the music industry food chain, but what about those newer, smaller artists who rely on TikTok for audience outreach and exposure?

Singer Conan Gray built his audience on TikTok both before and after signing with Republic Records, a label owned by Universal Music Group. Gray recently joked about his career being over, quipping that he’s “never gonna have a hit song again at this rate” in a Rolling Stone article.

Yungblud and Noah Kahan are among the many smaller artists who readily promote their music on TikTok and have made their comments on the situation. Kahan expressed in a TikTok video how his music will not be able to be promoted on the platform but was (somewhat) confident that he’ll "land on his feet." Yungblud expressed his disdain for the apparent power play that these companies are making but made the point that this goes to show that creating art based on metrics and algorithms is an unsustainable practice.

After all, the artist with a supportive fanbase and defined artistic story shouldn’t worry. TikTok is a platform that uses music to enhance its user experience, similar to YouTube. It is not the principal platform that fans use to listen to music. Interacting with fans, in that sense, should be relatively unaffected.

Ultimately, this situation is extremely impermanent and will probably be resolved soon. When the publishing deal expires, true pressure from all sides of the industry will be put on both companies to reach an agreement. The CEO of Warner Music Group (WMG) has even recently expressed his satisfaction with the deal that WMG has with TikTok due to the situation. I doubt that those affected artists and record labels who aren’t directly under UMG will tolerate their music being taken off of their platform.

However, this music removal will impact ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, more than UMG. Instagram and YouTube have both released short-form video content, mirroring TikTok’s content model effectively enough to be considered viable replacements. If it is the short-form content presented that keeps users on TikTok, as soon as they get fed up with not having their favorite songs on TikTok, they will make the transition to another social media platform.

UMG would be in trouble if it relied on one social platform, let alone digital marketing. The artists signed to this label have access to a myriad of marketing resources — they’ll be fine without TikTok.