It seems that many songs from well-known artists such as Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and others will vanish within hours from the popular short video app TikTok's library. The Guardian reported on Tuesday that "the Universal Music Group's agreement with TikTok is set to expire in 24 hours after the two companies failed to reach an agreement on issues such as artist compensation and artificial intelligence, which means that many of the world's most popular songs will be removed from the app." The BBC indicated that the dispute could indeed lead to "millions" of songs disappearing from TikTok if the talks collapse.
Universal published an article on its website on Tuesday titled "Open Letter to the Artist and Songwriter Community: Why We Must Say Time is Up with TikTok." In the letter, the largest music company in the world accused TikTok of trying to "bully" and "intimidate" into "accepting a deal of less value than the previous agreement and far below fair market value," according to Universal. The company stated that TikTok represents "only about 1% of our total revenue," considering that as "evidence of how little compensation there is for artists and songwriters," despite the app’s huge and growing user base, rapid increase in ad revenues, and heightened reliance on music-based content. The company accused TikTok of flooding the platform with AI-generated recordings instead of real artists.
The TikTok app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, allows users to create short videos, most of which are recorded with soundtracks featuring licensed music. In response to the letter, ByteDance claimed that "Universal has placed its greed above the interests of its artists and songwriters," accusing it of lying.
