Taylor Swift’s music label Universal Media Group threatens to pull music from TikTok
NY Post
Universal Music Group — which owns the rights to superstars including Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish and Drake — threatened to revoke TikTok’s license on Wednesday after the two companies failed to reach a deal on key issues such as artist compensation.
The world’s largest music company wants TikTok to increase payments to its artists, as well as to address the growing trend of using artificial intelligence to create music on the Chinese-owned video-sharing app.
Revoking TikTok’s license, which expires Wednesday, could be a devastating blow for the app as roughly 60% of the videos posted to its platform include music.
“TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay,” UMG said.
“As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted 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.”
The company did not say how much it was paid in its previous deal or what increase it is seeking from TikTok, which has an estimated 1.5 billion monthly users.
