The world’s largest major in the music industry Universal Music Group (UMG) announced on Tuesday the withdrawal of its songs from the social network TikTok, after the failure of negotiations with the platform on issues such as the remuneration of artists and authors -composers.
In an open letter, Universal accused TikTok of “trying to build a business based on music, without paying fair value for the music.” The two sides discussed the terms of a new deal, with the existing contract set to expire on Wednesday. But the agreement was not renewed.
In a statement, TikTok said it was “sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group put its own greed ahead of the interests of its artists.”
Among the issues raised during the negotiations were “appropriate compensation” for artists and songwriters, online security for users, as well as protecting artists from the harms of artificial intelligence, the letter added. UMG.
But as negotiations progressed, “TikTok attempted to intimidate us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, well below fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth,” Universal said.
Major record labels collect royalties from streaming platforms and social media.
The giant Universal, however, said that TikTok was offering to pay “a rate that is only a fraction of the rate paid by major platforms in a similar situation”.
Calling Universal’s statements “false”, TikTok believes that the record company has “chosen to turn away from the powerful support of a platform which has more than a billion users and which serves as a vehicle for promotion and free discovery for their talents.”
Although TikTok has a large number of users, it only represents around 1% of Universal’s total revenue, UMG further denounced in its letter.
Universal notes other issues such as the presence of a large number of AI-generated recordings on the TikTok platform.
Taylor Swift and The Weeknd are among the artists labeled by Universal.
Owned by Chinese company ByteDance, TikTok is one of the most popular social networks in the world, with over a billion users.