“WOEFULLY OUTDATED": UMG ISSUES NEW STATEMENT ON TIKTOK

A spokesperson for UMG has issued a new statement regarding the end of its licensing agreement with TikTok and the label group's decision to take its music off the ByteDance-owned platform:

Our agreements with TikTok have expired because of TikTok’s unwillingness to appropriately compensate artists and songwriters, protect human artists from the harmful effects of AI and address online safety issues for TikTok's users (more on that here).

In fact, TikTok’s own statement perfectly sums up its woefully outdated view: Even though TikTok (formerly Musical.ly) has built one of the world’s largest and most valuable social-media platforms off the backs of artists and songwriters, TikTok still argues that artists should be grateful for the “free promotion” and that music companies are “greedy” for expecting them to simply compensate artists and songwriters appropriately and on levels similar to what other social-media platforms currently do.

TikTok didn’t even attempt to address the other issues we raised regarding harmful AI and platform safety. It’s no surprise that artist-rights advocates are speaking out in support of our action.