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Why the music of Taylor Swift and others
might disappear from TikTok

One expert calls the move a “masterful PR stroke” on the part of Universal Music Group because it positions the company favorably, while spotlighting the growing concerns around how AI is upending the industry.

Person holding a phone displaying the TikTok app loading screen.
01/31/24 – BOSTON, MA. – TikTok stock photography on Jan. 31, 2024. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

Universal Music Group, a label repping music giants like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande, could be headed for a dramatic breakup with social media behemoth TikTok.

The record label company said it would be pulling its music from TikTok at the end of the day Wednesday after a new deal with TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, could not be reached. 

The main sticking point is royalties — the money musicians receive every time a song is played — though it also cited concerns over AI-generated content and hate speech on the platform. 

“This is a really big deal,” says Melissa Ferrick, a seasoned recording artist, producer, and songwriter who teaches music business and songwriting courses at Northeastern University.

In 2021, Universal Music Group signed a deal with TikTok that gave its 1.5 billion monthly users access to a repository of recordings. The record label profits off licensing those recordings and the associated intellectual property — not just to platforms such as TikTok, whose content creators can then use them in their videos, but to streaming services, TV and movie producers, among other interested parties. 

The group pays royalties to its artists through royalty reporting systems that it says “provides detailed royalty data to our artists.” 

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Hoping your favorite sped-up version of Cruel Summer doesn’t disappear after Universal Music Group’s departure from TikTok? We might have some bad news… #UniversalMusicGroup #UMG #TiktokMusic #copyright #TaylorSwift #BTS

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Universal taking a stand on behalf of artists

While acknowledging TikTok’s position, Ferrick says she views the rift as Universal Music Group taking a stand on behalf of artists.

“TikTok has a point, though: this is 100% free advertising for the record labels, for the artists, for the songs,” she says.  

David Herlihy, a teaching professor in the music industry program at Northeastern, says what happens next is unclear. He calls the move a “masterful PR stroke” on the part of Universal Music Group because it positions the company favorably — as advocating on behalf of its artists — while spotlighting the growing concerns around how AI is upending the industry.

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