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Videos on TikTok began going silent early Thursday morning after combative licensing negotiations between the popular social media platform and Universal Music Group, the giant company that releases music from artists including Taylor Swift, Drake, U2, collapsed this week. and Ariana Grande.
On Tuesday, a day before its licensing deal with TikTok expired, Universal, the largest of the three major record companies, released a fiery open letter accusing TikTok of offering subpar payments for music and allowing its platform to be “flooded with AI-generated recordings” that diluted the royalty pool of real human musicians.
TikTok confirmed early Thursday that it had removed Universal’s music, and videos on the app began showing the effects of the broken partnership. Recordings by Universal artists were removed from TikTok’s library and existing videos that used music by Universal artists had their audio muted entirely. Universal songs were also not available for users to add to new videos.
TO video posted by Kylie Jenner In September, for example, using a song by Lana Del Rey, who is signed to a Universal label, it was silent, with a note that said: “This sound is not available.” (The commentators on the video had commented on the music.) Other videos contained similar statements, including “Sound removed due to copyright restrictions.”
When users went to the official profiles of Universal artists like Swift and Grande, who is releasing a new album next month, tabs that would normally display dozens of tracks that users could add to their own clips were either completely empty or reduced to a handful of short fragments.
The extent of the consequences was unclear Thursday, and a spokeswoman did not provide an estimate of how many videos would be affected by the change. As of Thursday morning, some videos using Universal recordings did not appear to be affected.
TikTok, where users upload short video clips, often with background music, is a vital promotional arena for the music industry. A music-driven viral meme on TikTok can turn a song into a hit or revitalize a decades-old classic, as happened in 2020 with Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 song, “Dreams.” Universal’s clash with the platform is the latest manifestation of a media conflict that has been repeated repeatedly over the past two decades, pitting the innovations of technology companies against the music industry’s demands for control and compensation.
In response to Universal, TikTok on Tuesday accused The music company in a statement said it put “its own greed before the interests of its artists and songwriters” and said Universal had “decided to move away from the powerful support of a platform with more than a billion users that serves as a free platform vehicle.” promotion and discovery of their talent.”
Representatives for Universal and TikTok on Thursday declined to make further statements about their negotiations or the removal of music from the platform.
Universal’s withdrawal was interpreted in the music industry as practically a War declaration against one of the most influential online media in the world, although over which record labels have limited control.
Contentious contract talks, and even public criticism, are standard terrain when it comes to big music companies and tech platforms negotiating the important content licenses that allow those platforms to host music. But it’s rare for a music company to follow through on threats to remove its content. That happened in 2008, when Warner Music removed thousands of music videos from YouTube; The standoff lasted nine months and Warner returned his videos once YouTube agreed to share advertising revenue with the label.