Songs from artists including Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and Ariana Grande could be disappearing from the platform.
Universal Music has threatened to pull millions of songs from TikTok following a breakdown in payment negotiations.
Universal holds the rights to some of the world’s biggest artists, including Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and Ariana Grande.
The company previously reached a deal with TikTok in February 2021, which enables users on the app to include clips from its music catalogue in their videos.
However, on Tuesday (30th January), Universal said that its agreement with the social media platform has not been renewed, and that it would remove all of its songs from TikTok when the current deal ends on Wednesday 31st January.
Read on for everything you need to know.
Why are so many songs leaving TikTok? Universal issues explained
UMG has threatened to pull its entire song catalogue from TikTok after talks between the two companies fell through.
In an open letter titled Why We Must Call Time Out on TikTok published on Tuesday, Universal Music accused TikTok of attempting to “bully” them into accepting a deal that was only “a fraction” of the rate other similar social media platforms pay for access to its catalogue.
“TikTok’s tactics are obvious: use its platform power to hurt vulnerable artists and try to intimidate us into conceding to a bad deal that undervalues music and shortchanges artists and songwriters as well as their fans,” UMG wrote.
In a response, TikTok accused Universal of presenting a “false narrative and rhetoric”, and putting “greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters” by discarding the “powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent”.
In a statement, TikTok added: “TikTok has been able to reach ‘artist-first’ agreements with every other label and publisher. Clearly, Universal’s self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters and fans.”
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